Past, Present, Future
by Rainack
Summary: Only days after Warrick's memorial service, Nick and Greg are assigned to a case that hits way too close to home for Nick. Will Nick's past destroy Greg's present, or lead him to a future with Nick? NG Slash. Rated M for later chapters. R&R, please.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, though I wish I did. :) Just love 'em!

A/N: Join me on another flight of fancy through a world of my design using the CSIs we know and love. Hope you enjoy it. As always, let me know what you think!

This story is dedicated to all of my loyal fans who decided to take a chance on one or another of my stories, only to find themselves hopelessly addicted. :) Hope it lives up to your expectations!

Past, Present, Future

Chapter 1

The break room was quiet, and Greg Sanders had just sat down at the table with a steaming mug of his special blend Blue Hawaiian coffee. He sat, transfixed by the steam rising from the rich brown liquid, avoiding the eyes of everyone else in the room, because he knew what he'd see there.

It had only been days since Warrick Brown's memorial service, and everyone was still deeply affected by his loss. Catherine Willows was sitting across from him, her eyes red rimmed, as though she'd been crying again, and knowing how close she was to Warrick, she probably had been. Sara Sidle was sitting at the end of the table, looking a bit lost, as she didn't belong here anymore. At this point, though, she didn't have anywhere else to be. Greg suspected she wouldn't be here much longer, though. She'd slip away again, leaving everyone just as confused as the first time she'd left. Nick Stokes seemed to be taking Warrick's loss the hardest, though. The lines around his eyes and on his forehead seemed to have deepened in the past week. They appeared to be carved so deeply into his flesh that they had to cut into the bone beneath. His eyes were hollow with exhaustion, and the heavy bags under them spoke of too little to no sleep. Greg knew that it wasn't all due to the heavy workload and overtime caused by Warrick's loss.

At the heart of the matter was Warrick's loss. He and Nick had been best friends, often hanging out after work to play video games, have a beer or two. Greg wished there was some way he could ease the older man's pain. He'd had a crush on Nick for years, but being co-workers, he didn't want to jeopardize their friendship. Plus there was the slight problem that he was pretty sure that Nick was straight. Pretty sure because while Nick returned his playful flirtations, he was constantly talking about the girls he'd been out on dates with.

Greg thought the only other person who might have actually taken Warrick's loss harder than Nick was Gil Grissom, the graveyard shift supervisor of the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Warrick had looked up to Grissom as the father figure he'd never known growing up.

When Grissom walked into the break room, assignment slips in hand, Greg's head snapped up instantly. He'd only just made CSI Level 1 in the past few months, so receiving an assignment still felt exciting, even with everything that had happened in the past week hanging over them.

When he spoke, Grissom's voice was quiet, as though he felt uncomfortable breaking into everyone's thoughts, and wished he didn't have to. "Catherine, you're still on that string of home invasions. Nick and Greg, you're working together tonight," he didn't elaborate on the case, just handed the slip to Nick. He then turned around and walked out, not even acknowledging Sara's presence.

Greg found this a bit odd, but shrugged it off, taking a mouthful of coffee. Standing, he approached Nick, who hadn't yet looked at their assignment. He had closed his eyes and was rubbing a large hand over his face, as though trying to wake up, which Greg figured was the truth of the matter.

Watching as Nick finally looked at the slip, Greg saw the color drain from Nick's face, heard him mutter, "Damn!" under his breath.

"What is it, Nick?" Greg asked quietly.

Nick didn't respond, though, just crumpled the paper in his fist and fled the break room. That's all Greg could come up with to call it. The older man hadn't stormed out as though he was angry, he'd just left quickly, as though he'd rather be anywhere but there at that moment.

Unsure of what to do, Greg took off in pursuit of Nick. Surely Nick wasn't fleeing from him? He'd asked a simple question. Nothing that should have caused the older man to run from him. So Greg came to the logical conclusion that it had to be something to do with the case they'd been handed, though he still had no idea what it was.

As he followed Nick, he caught sight of the older man heading off in the direction of Grissom's office.

Grissom's upraised hand kept Greg from entering the office. Nick – back to the door – either didn't know, or didn't care that he was there.

"I can't work this case, Gris. Put me on something else, let Greg work this one solo." Nick's southern drawl had deepened considerably, as it had a penchant for doing when he was extremely tired or stressed.

"There isn't anything else for you to work right now, Nick. Besides," and here Grissom's eyes met Greg's, "Greg's still green enough to need a more seasoned set of eyes on the case with him."

Greg tried not to let the comment get to him. It was Grissom's way of reminding him that he could get a bit overzealous at times, something the supervisor had assured him would become tempered with time and experience. Instead, he tried to concentrate on Nick's reaction to being told he had to work the case they'd been given. He watched as Nick's shoulders slumped in resignation, and wondered just what the hell the case was that it had Nick reacting this way.

Stepping into the office, Greg approached Nick, where the older man still stood facing Grissom's desk. He could see the assignment slip still clutched in Nick's hand, and gently pried it from his grip. Before Greg's eyes dropped to the slip of paper, Nick turned to look at him. The haunted look in his friend's eyes nearly broke Greg's heart.

With an effort, he dragged his gaze from Nick's, down to the crumpled paper he found himself gripping almost as hard as Nick had been. Forcing his fist to loosen, Greg did his best to straighten the paper, reading the words as he did so. The body of a young boy, obviously sexually assaulted, had been found in a vacant house undergoing renovations out in Henderson.

There it was, then. Greg knew that cases involving kids always hit Nick harder than the other CSIs. Nick must have felt that a case like this, coming so soon after Warrick's loss, was something that he wouldn't be able to handle.

Grissom spoke for the first time since Greg came into the office, "I'm sorry, Nick. You have to work the case."

Placing a hand gently on Nick's forearm, Greg quietly said, "Come on, Nick. We better get going."

Nick shook Greg's hand off his arm, with a spat out, "Fine!" to both men, then turned on his heel and left the office. He called back over his shoulder, "Coming, Greg?"

Giving Grissom a last look, Greg turned and followed his friend and co-worker.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: A warning on this chapter, you get a look at that crime scene here, and it does involve a child. Please know, I would never ever hurt a child. I have a young son of my own whom I love very dearly. This is just a requirement for the plot.

Chapter 2

As usual, Nick had insisted on driving. The drive out to Henderson was made in silence, not even the radio breaking the quiet.

At the start of the drive, Greg had tried to engage the older man in conversation, starting to say, "Nick," only to be cut off by the more seasoned CSI.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Nick's eyes had never deviated from the road ahead of them, his voice hadn't risen.

Greg had surreptitiously watched Nick from the corner of his eye. He wished he could smooth away the lines on Nick's forehead, around his eyes, get the older man to smile again. He loved that big Texan grin. He knew it was probably too soon to expect it, though. After all, Warrick had been like a brother to Nick. He just hoped that Nick didn't forget how to smile. He'd seen the evidence of what this job could do to a person. He didn't think Sara would ever really be the same, no matter how long she was away from the job, from Vegas.

When they arrived at the house where the boy had been found, both men jumped down from the department Tahoe without a word. Greg met Nick at the back of the Tahoe, where Nick lifted the cargo door so they could both collect their silver field kits.

Captain Jim Brass was waiting for them by the front door of the house, black notebook and pen in hand. He was wearing his usual attire of suit and tie, his usual hangdog face a bit more drawn than usual. Everyone knew that Brass had been pretty hard on Warrick, in the weeks before his death. It made Greg wonder if Brass perhaps felt a bit of guilt at how he'd treated the African American CSI.

Nick pushed past Brass, into the front room of the house, and Brass raised an eyebrow at Greg, as if to say, "What's up with him?"

Shrugging, Greg motioned for Brass to precede him, then followed the homicide detective.

From the outside of the house, there was little to suggest the large scale renovations taking place within. The inside of the house had been pretty well gutted, the once dry walled walls taken down to the studs, ceiling frames exposed, floor showing bare concrete. Sawhorses supported pieces of wood being used as makeshift tables, tools scattered across their surface. One corner of what had once been the living room had stacks of two by fours, dry wall, ceiling tiles, and other construction materials.

A uniformed officer, looking a little green around the gills, stood in here. Sweat stood out on his forehead, and he seemed to be mumbling under his breath. Greg wasn't sure, but he thought it might have been the Lord's Prayer.

Nick had disappeared from view, deeper into the house, into an area where new drywall had been recently installed.

Greg was nearly walking on Brass's heels, anxious to find Nick, get started processing the scene. As he continued to follow Brass, it dawned on Greg that the New Jersey transplant hadn't spoken once since they'd arrived. This was highly unusual for the seasoned homicide detective. By this time, he would have given them a run down of how the body had been found, and what appeared to have happened. He was strangely quiet, now.

As Greg and Brass entered the hallway leading deeper into the house, Nick came stumbling back out of a room at the far end of the hall, looking as though he might get sick. He still had his crime scene kit in hand, nearly dropping it when he moved to brace his latex gloved hand on the wall in front of him. Realizing he had the kit, he set it down, then placed his hand against the wall, leaning his head on his arm.

Brass did a half turn, twisting to share a look with Greg, before Greg pushed past the homicide detective and moved up next to Nick.

Shifting his kit to his left hand, Greg put his right hand gently on Nick's shoulder. "Nicky, you okay?"

Gulping in a few deep breaths, Nick managed a weak, "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," before straightening back up.

"Look, if you want, I'll process in here, and you can process the perimeter," Greg said, as he removed his hand from his friend's shoulder.

Still looking a bit green, but shaking his head resolutely, Nick said, "No, we'll do it together." Picking his case back up, Nick moved warily towards the door again. The way Nick stopped in the doorway, blocking his sight of the room, gave Greg the impression that Nick was trying to shield him from the spectacle within.

"Nick?" Greg questioned gently, about to put his hand on Nick's arm to try to get the older man to move out of the way.

Nick didn't say anything, just stepped aside, revealing the terrible sight within the room.

Taking a step into the room, Greg sucked in a lung full of air in a rush, before letting it out on a strangled, "Sweet Jesus!"

The boy couldn't have been any older than nine or ten years old, but the way he'd been posed made him look more like an infant. He was laying on his stomach, arms and legs drawn up under him, bottom in the air, facing the door. He had his right thumb in his mouth, and his eyes were closed as if he were merely sleeping. He wore no clothes, and his skin was the ashen gray pallor of death, except in the areas of the boy's body nearest the floor, which were a dark purple from lividity.

David Phillips, the assistant coroner, was examining the body. He had just finished removing a meat probe style thermometer from an incision he'd made over the boy's liver.

"Dave?" Greg couldn't quite disguise the slight tremor in his voice.

"Male Caucasian, approximately nine to ten years of age. Liver temp suggests time of death within the last ten hours. Blood and tearing around the rectum suggests sexual assault. No apparent cause of death. I'll inform Doc Robbins to collect an S.A.E. kit. No apparent trace on him, but we'll bag the hands to preserve anything under the nails."

Greg could tell Dave was doing his best to maintain his own composure.

Speaking softly, as though they were in a house of God, instead of what had turned out to be a house of horror, Greg said, "Thanks, Dave." He then shared a pitiful excuse for a smile with the coroner.

As Dave had already snapped photos of the body, Greg waited for the coroner and the paramedics to remove the body, before beginning to take photos of the rest of the scene.

It quickly became obvious that this was the dump sight, not the primary crime scene. Other than a scuffed footprint or two, there really wasn't much evidence here. The two men collected what they could, before walking around the outside of the house. Again, there wasn't much there. The alleyway, outback, was dirt so hard packed it couldn't hold a footprint or tire print, and the lawn out front hadn't been driven over, or tread upon.

By the time they had finished processing the scene, Brass had finished conducting interviews of the neighbors. None of them had seen the boy before, and noone had seen any activity at the house that shouldn't have been there.

To say that they had nothing at this stage was a major understatement.

When they arrived back at the lab, they checked what little evidence they had in, then went and printed up photos from the scene. Once they had finished those tasks, there was really nothing else they could do until they got some information from Doc Robbins about the boy, and identified him. And at this point, Doc Robbins had a bit of a backlog from days that he had to get through in autopsy, before he could get to anything for graveyard.

Finding Grissom seemingly buried to the elbows in paperwork in his office, Greg knocked tentatively on the boss's door.

"Come in," Grissom said with a sigh, pulling his glasses from his nose to rub at his eyes, before replacing them. "Greg, you look terrible!" Grissom started, after taking a long look at the level one CSI. "Does Nick look as bad as you?" Contrary to popular belief, Grissom did realize how certain cases affected certain CSIs.

A faraway look on his face, as he thought of the older CSI, Greg said, "Worse, Gris."

Glancing at his watch, Grissom saw that they were only about halfway through shift. "How much evidence do you have to process?"

"It was a dump site, there wasn't much to find. We're going to have to wait on the autopsy."

"I'm giving you two the rest of the night off, then. Go get Nick drunk or something, get his mind off the case, off Warrick. Whatever you have to do, Greg," Grissom said with a sad sigh. He knew Nick was hurting, they had just been so busy and understaffed lately, that he hadn't been able to give anyone extra time off. Now seemed the perfect time to let Nick blow off some steam.

"You know we're both scheduled for tomorrow off, right?" Greg asked, only to mentally slap his forehead, as Grissom would know that, since he made the schedules.

"That's why I said get him drunk, Greg," Grissom responded drily. "If I recall correctly, you're on call, though, so you need to stay at least slightly sober." Grissom gave the younger man a smirk, before shooing him out the door with a hand. "Get out of here."

With a small smile, Greg headed out the door to track down Nick.

Greg finally found Nick in the break room. The older man had a cup of coffee in front of him, which appeared to have been sitting there for a while, as there was no longer any steam creeping up from it. Arms crossed in front of him on the table, head resting on them, Nick had fallen asleep. Even in sleep, the creases in the older man's forehead didn't smooth away completely, making Greg wonder what he could be dreaming about.

Shaking his head sadly, Greg said, "Nick." When he received no response, he tried a little louder, "Nick!" Still receiving no response, he laid his hand on the other man's shoulder, intending to shake it gently.

The instant Greg's hand touch Nick, the other man jerked upright, nearly tipping his chair over in his surprise.

When Nick whirled toward him, one fist upraised, as though to hit him, Greg couldn't help but take a couple of steps backwards, hands upraised. He wondered at the look of abject terror on Nick's face, but didn't mention it, as the other man registered his surroundings and quickly caught himself.

Speaking as though nothing had happened, Greg said, "Grissom said to take the rest of the night off." Not sure he should mention anything about video games, Greg decided to suggest a movie, instead. "Stay at my place tonight, and we can watch a movie and get drunk."

Pain settled in Nick's eyes, replacing the terror, as he quietly said, "I'd rather play some video games, if you don't mind."

"Okay, Nick. Whatever you want. Go home and get whatever you need. I've got to stop by the store and stock up. Anything in particular you want?"

Nick had stood up, and they were now walking towards the elevator to the parking level.

"Coors, or something like that, I guess. I'm not really in the mood to drink," Nick said softly, before they parted ways to go to their own vehicles.

While all of his other plans seemed to be going down the drain, at least Nick didn't seem to be objecting to staying at Greg's place, so he counted himself lucky on that one. Even if it wouldn't be in the way Greg would have liked to have Nick staying with him. As Nick reached his truck, a few spaces down from Greg's car, Greg called out, "You remember how to get to my place, right?"

Nick didn't reply, just nodded, and waved a hand at him before climbing into his truck.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

When Greg pulled into his parking spot at his apartment, he found Nick already waiting for him.

The older man was leaning against his truck, a black backpack slung over one shoulder. In the harsh glare of the florescent tube lights under the awning that covered the parking spaces, Nick's face looked sallow and drawn.

Forcing a smile on his face, as he gathered up the three six packs he'd purchased, Greg locked his car, and gestured for Nick to follow him to the door.

After putting two of the six packs in the fridge, the other on the kitchen counter, Greg showed Nick to the guest room, so the older man could drop off his backpack. Back in the living room, Greg said, "Go ahead and put in whatever game you want, I'll go grab us both a beer."

When he returned to the living room a few minutes later, Nick had already put a game in the X-Box system, and had gathered up two controllers. Greg was holding a beer in each hand, his fingers wrapped around the barrel of each bottle.

As he sank down onto the sofa to the right of Nick, Greg reached across himself to hand Nick the beer he held in his right hand.

Nick took the bottle by the neck, two fingers brushing across Greg's fingers. Greg's heart skipped a couple of beats, as he finally convinced himself that the touch had been an accident, just the way Nick had grabbed the bottle. Greg took a decent mouthful of the beverage, watching out of the corner of his eye to see that Nick only took enough of a swallow to be polite.

They played video games for several hours, until Greg noticed Nick's eyelids drooping for what must have been the third or fourth time. He himself had stifled several yawns, and knew it was well past his usual bedtime. Pausing the game, he watched in amusement for a moment, as Nick's fingers continued to move over the controller, before he finally gently tugged the controller from Nick's hand.

Nick blinked his eyes open again, staring a bit owlishly at Greg, as Greg leaned over him to pull him to his feet. "Come on, you're going to bed."

Finally getting Nick on his feet, after the older man had nearly fallen over when Greg had first pulled him up, Greg put his arm around Nick's waist in support, and moved them both down the hall towards the spare bedroom. He knew Nick wasn't drunk. Far from it. Greg had never gone back to the kitchen for a second beer for either of them. In fact, their first beers sat, forgotten and long gone flat, on the coffee table. Nick was just too exhausted to even be able to walk in a straight line. Trying to keep his mind off of how it felt to have the older man so close to him, Greg maneuvered them down the hall.

By the time they reached the spare bedroom, Nick had managed to wake up enough to move under his own power into the room, where he headed towards the connected bathroom, presumably to brush his teeth, use the toilet, and change into whatever he deemed to be appropriate sleep wear.

Closing the door behind him, Greg headed to his own room, where he quickly took care of his own nightly routines and crawled into his own inviting bed.

The apartment was an older one, which meant the interior walls were a bit thinner than the exterior walls, allowing sounds from other rooms of the apartment to travel quite well. Greg could hear the sink running in the guest bathroom, followed by the toilet flushing. After that, he assumed Nick had crawled into bed and fallen asleep. With the sound of running water gone, Greg quickly fell into slumber, himself.

Blinking his eyes in the near total darkness, Greg tried to figure out what had awakened him. He was still too sleep addled to instantly process what it was. Filtering through possibilities, he ruled out his alarm clock, as well as his cell phone and land line. The sound of running water coming from the guest bathroom finally registered in Greg's brain. After another minute or two, he was able to narrow it down to the shower. Looking over at the alarm clock, this time concentrating on deciphering the time, he realized he'd only been asleep for about two hours. There should be no way Nick was already up and showering to leave.

Crawling sleepily out of bed, Greg slipped on a pair of sweats he'd had draped across the end of the bed, before shuffling out of his room and down the hall.

Pausing at the closed guest room door, Greg knocked. When he got no response, he knocked again, this time adding, "Nick?" Finally, he opened the door, and stepped into the room. The bed – still made – appeared rumpled, as if Nick had laid down on top of the covers. Nick's work boots – socks stuffed into them – were sitting on the floor, partially pushed under the bed.

The bathroom door stood open, and through it, Greg could see a form huddled on the floor of the shower stall. Through the frosted glass of the shower door, the form was dark enough to suggest Nick had gotten into the shower fully dressed.

"Nicky?" Greg called out, not wanting to scare the older man, but seriously worried about him.

The form in the shower jerked, but didn't respond in any other way. The stifled sounds of sobbing drifted out to Greg.

After muttering, "Shit!" under his breath, Greg called out more loudly, "I'm coming in, Nicky."

Seeing no point in being cautious – after all, it wouldn't change whatever he was about to see – Greg quickly crossed the bedroom, into the bathroom, to the shower doors.

Pushing open the shower door closest to Nick's position, Greg found the older man sitting on the floor of the shower, his knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. His head came up from where it had been resting on his knees, and he turned red rimmed, lost brown eyes on Greg.

The lack of steam or heat radiating out of the shower hit Greg like a slap to the face, and he realized that Nick was sitting in soaking wet clothing under a spray of icy water.

After reaching in to turn off the water, Greg sat back on his heels, regarding Nick quietly. When he finally spoke a moment later, he said, "Come on, Nick. Gotta get you out of those wet clothes and warmed up. You're not shivering. That's not a good sign."

When Nick didn't move, Greg reached into the shower and pried the older man's arms away from his knees, pulling on him to get him to move. Nick's skin was like ice to the touch. Greg knew his own body temperature tended to run a bit hotter than normal, but he knew it wouldn't be enough to cause Nick to feel so cold to him. That meant Nick's core temperature had to have fallen, while he'd been sitting under the cold spray.

"Nicky, if you don't get out of this shower, I'm going to call 911. I don't think you want this going on report," Greg spoke softly but solemnly, his own brown eyes drilling into his friend's.

Finally moving, Nick stood stiffly, and allowed Greg to pull him out of the shower. His movements were sluggish from being so cold. Anxious to get the older man warm, Greg batted Nick's hands aside and tackled the buttons and wet material of Nick's shirt himself. Once the shirt was gone, Greg grabbed a towel from the towel bar and draped it over Nick's shoulders, rubbing them vigorously to stimulate the older man's circulation.

Feeling the heat rise in his face, Greg said, "Look, I'll unbutton your jeans, and you can take them off, while I go find you some pajama bottoms to put on."

Nick just nodded in acknowledgment, still not speaking.

After tackling the button of Nick's jeans, Greg raced back to his own room, deciding it would just be faster to grab a pair of his own pajama bottoms for the older man, than to go through the backpack Nick had brought with him. After grabbing a pair of tartan pajama bottoms, he retraced his steps to the guest bathroom, where Nick had just succeeded in removing his soaked jeans and underwear. Turning his head away to give Nick a semblance of privacy, Greg held out the pajama bottoms for Nick to take.

Once Nick had gotten into the pajama bottoms, which were a couple of inches too long for him, Greg grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the bathroom.

As it dawned on Nick exactly where Greg was taking him, he finally managed to speak, though it was only one word, "What?"

Turning to look back at Nick, Greg said, "You're dangerously cold, Nick. You've got to get warm in a hurry. The fastest way to do that is by me sharing my body heat with you, plus, my bed has an electric blanket on it."

An odd expression flitted across Nick's face – one Greg would have called longing, if he hadn't known Nick any better than he did – before a look of resignation settled on his face.

After turning both sides of the electric blanket on and setting them on high, Greg crawled under the covers, so he was facing Nick, and patted the space beside him. "Your back to my chest will get enough skin to skin contact to start warming you up." Here was Greg's greatest wish coming true, to get Nick Stokes in his bed, and Greg was too worried about the man to find any joy in it.

When Nick's back touched his chest, Greg let out a hiss of discomfort at the shock of cold. Greg could almost imagine that the sigh Nick let out was due to being pressed up against him, instead of being due to the sudden warmth flooding the older man's system. Putting his arm around Nick's waist, Greg pulled the other man closer, trying to get as much contact as possible to warm Nick up.

Nick tensed, almost causing Greg to remove his arm from Nick's waist. Instead, Greg murmured in Nick's ear, "It's okay, Nick. I'm just trying to get you warmed up. I won't hurt you." After a moment, Nick relaxed again.

After several minutes, Nick's teeth started to chatter, the staccato sound filling the room.

"Getting better, Nicky?" Greg asked, when the chattering had begun to slow a little.

"Y-yeah," Nick stammered, "Ch-chest's c-cold, though."

Releasing Nick, Greg rolled to his other side, "Roll over and press your chest into my back." Greg's back was scarred from the lab explosion several years ago, but he wasn't self-conscious of it in the least. Life was just too short for him to care what anyone else thought of his body. Most of the scarring had been caused by broken glass, as the fire from the explosion had been extinguished by its velocity nearly the instant it touched him.

He felt Nick shift behind him, and received another shock, as the older man's chest now pressed against his back.

As Nick's teeth chatters finally faded away, Greg shifted to move away, figuring the other man would find their position embarrassing, and want to go back to his own bed. Instead, he felt lips brush across the skin of his left shoulder. Now it was Greg's turn to tense. Surely he hadn't just felt Nick kiss him.

Confusion was heavy in Greg's voice, when he finally found it a moment later, "Nicky? What was... I mean, I didn't know you're..."

Now Nick was shifting, starting to move away, with a mumbled, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I'll go."

Greg rolled back towards Nick, catching the other man's wrist. "You don't have to go," Greg met Nick's gaze in the gloom filled room, pouring all of his longing into that gaze, hoping Nick could see it and read it for what it was.

Suddenly, Greg found himself being pushed flat onto his back, Nick hovering over him. Nick's lips captured his in a hesitant kiss that quickly turned deeper. When Nick abruptly pulled away, a strangled sound escaping his throat, Greg wasn't sure what to think.

"I-I can't do this. At least, not... Argh!" Nick's frustration was evident in his voice, and he threw himself onto his back. "I've wanted... so long now..." he seemed to be gaining speed, if not the ability to string words into complete sentences, until, "There are things about me no one knows, Greg. I have to tell you, before this goes any farther. Can we just- can we just sleep, right now? I promise to tell you everything, when we wake up."

For once in his life, Greg Sanders found himself speechless. He nodded his head, hoping Nick could see or feel it in the gloom.

Nick must have either seen or felt the nod, because he shifted from his back to cuddle into Greg's left side, his head resting no Greg's chest. Hesitantly, Greg rested his left hand on Nick's back, and began rubbing the smooth skin there. He marveled that Nick was this close to him, and was sure he wouldn't be able to sleep, having his dreams resting against him. A small snore from the other man told Greg that Nick had already slipped into sleep.

As Greg lay there, with Nick – body temperature back to normal – sleeping against him, he realized the Texan's body heat matched his own. For some reason, with all of their flirting that involved invasion of personal space that had occurred over the years, Greg had never realized Nick's body temperature tended towards the hot side, like his own.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Just found a problem I missed the first time I read back through this, so this is just a repost with that one problem fixed. (Nothing huge, just an incomplete sentence.)

Chapter 4

Greg must have finally dozed off at some point, because he woke up to Nick – propped up on an elbow – gazing down at him, the fingers of his free hand pushing a strand of unruly hair off Greg's forehead and tracing down his cheek.

A smile lit up Nick's face, and for a change, Greg noticed the lines around his eyes weren't as deep, the bags under them not as pronounced. It was the first genuine smile Greg could remember seeing on his friend's face since just before Warrick's death.

"Good morning," Nick murmured quietly, as though afraid he might startle Greg if he spoke too loudly. While Nick looked happier today, there was still a haunted look in his chocolate colored eyes.

It didn't stop Greg's face from lighting up with a smile, as he murmured, "Hi."

Worrying at his lower lip with his teeth, Nick dropped his eyes, "Guess I owe you an explanation for last night, huh."

With a small shake of his head, Greg said, "Nick, you don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."

"Yeah, yeah, I do," Nick said, shifting slightly in nervous discomfort.

Reaching up to trail his own finger over Nick's cheek, drawing the older man's eyes back to his, Greg said, "Why don't I fix us some coffee. Everything's better with Blue Hawaiian."

Relaxing a little, the smile returning to his face, Nick said, "Okay."

Bare chested and bare footed, both men made their way to the kitchen, where Greg started bustling about. He pulled out the coffee grinder, and a bag of fresh beans. Except for the sound of the coffee grinder doing its magic to turn the coffee beans into grounds, the kitchen was quiet. Neither spoke as Greg placed a filter and the grounds into the coffee machine, or as he added water to the reservoir.

Soon, the air was filled with the aroma of the brewing coffee. Nick seemed to need something in his hands, so Greg handed him an empty coffee mug, which the older man wrapped his hands around gratefully.

When the coffee maker finally sputtered out the last of the water, and dripped the last of the freshly brewed coffee into the carafe, Greg pulled it from the hotplate and poured the nectar of the gods into first Nick's mug, then his own. After replacing the carafe on the coffee maker's hotplate, Greg got out a small container of creamer and several sugar packets and handed them to Nick.

Giving Greg another small smile, Nick said, "Thanks," and doctored his coffee the way he liked it.

Picking up his mug of coffee, Greg indicated the door to the living room. "Why don't we go sit on the couch."

Nodding in acknowledgment, Nick picked up his own mug and followed the younger man.

Amid all of the other myriad of items on the coffee table, there was a stack of coasters. Greg set out two of them on the coffee table, placing his mug on the coaster nearest where he had settled on the couch. The beers they hadn't finished last night were still sitting where they'd been forgotten.

Nick settled on the other end of the couch, and set his coffee down on the coaster in front of him. He bowed his head, staring at his hands for a few moments.

Twisting slightly to face Nick, Greg pulled his legs up underneath him and patiently waited for his friend to speak.

"As I'm sure you figured out by now, I'm gay." Nick looked up from his hands, gaging Greg's reaction. Greg was pretty sure Nick expected him to be indignant about why the older man had kept it from him, but he wasn't. He just wanted to understand.

"For reasons that will be clear soon, it's taken me a long time to be able to be open about it with anyone. Grissom knows." Nick's breath hitched in his throat, as he fought down a sudden sob. "Warrick knew." He met Greg's eyes again, "I've wanted to tell you, so many times. Wanted to tell you how I feel about you. You flirt with everyone, always talking about the girls you've been out with. I guess Warrick suspected you were gay, as he was always encouraging me to tell you."

Nick lapsed into silence for a while, but Greg had the feeling the older man still had more to tell him, and that if he spoke, Nick might lose his courage to say whatever it was he seemed to need to say, so he sat quietly, waiting for Nick.

Sucking in a deep breath, Nick said, "When I was nine, my parents had planned a night out. My older sister, Elizabeth, was supposed to stay home and babysit me, but she had something come up that she couldn't get out of. This kid down the street, Todd, had offered to babysit, if my parents ever needed a sitter, but up until this point, they'd always had one of my older sisters, or my older brother, to look after the rest of us. My parents called Todd and asked him if he was available, and he agreed." Sometime in the course of his story, Nick had pulled his knees up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them, so he was sitting much as he had been in the shower the night before. It made him look like a small, frightened child.

Greg was becoming convinced he knew where this story was going, and wasn't sure he wanted to hear the rest of it, but he would, for Nick. If it meant a shot at having a future with the man sitting next to him, he'd listen.

"My parents had been gone for an hour, and I was in my room, reading. He came in and sat down on the edge of my bed, asked me what I was reading. I showed him. As I was going back to my book, he grabbed me. He," Nick's body was wracked by a huge sob, then another. He bit into his lower lip, trying to regain control, and Greg could see that if Nick continued with the force he was exerting, he would draw blood soon.

Scooting towards Nick, Greg drew the older man to him, wrapping his arms around Nick's broad shoulders. "Sh... It's okay, Nicky, you don't have to tell me."

"When he- when he forced himself inside me... It hurt, so bad. I screamed, but there was no one there to hear me." Nick had released his grip on his knees, transferring it to Greg, instead. He buried his face in Greg's chest, making it hard for Greg to understand what he was saying. Hard, but not impossible. Greg would have given anything not to hear this, not from Nick, not from anyone.

"Please, Nicky, you don't have to tell me this. Not when it hurts you so much to relive it." Greg was crying now, tears flowing freely down his cheeks, dripping onto Nick's hair, but still Nick didn't stop speaking.

"I have to tell you. You have to understand."

Greg could feel Nick's tears sliding down his bare chest, as his own tears continued to fall into the older man's hair.

"Afterwards, he told me that if I told anyone, he'd come back and hurt me again. When my mom noticed the way I was walking the next morning, I lied and told her I'd been out riding earlier in the morning and been thrown. She bought it. I didn't tell anyone, not until a few years ago. Cath knows, not the whole thing, she thinks it was a female babysitter. All the way through highschool, I lived in shame. I hid it well, but it was there." Finally sitting back, Nick reached over to the box of tissues sitting on the coffee table.

After blowing his nose, he continued. "In college, a buddy of mine – majoring in psychology – recognized the signs of an impending break down, and told me to go see a shrink. The shrink helped me work through my shame, see that what happened to me wasn't my fault. For some years after what Todd had done to me, I mistakenly thought that he had turned me gay. I guess that's where all of that deep rooted shame came from. Once my shrink helped me to fully accept that even if I'd never met Todd, I'd still have been gay, I was finally able to let it go. I still didn't tell my parents about any of it, though, not at that time."

For the first time, Greg spoke, "But you did tell them." It wasn't a question, but Nick answered it anyway.

"After the box, I realized life was too short to keep hiding myself from my parents. I told them all of it. All about Todd, all about my sexuality. My dad blamed Todd, told me they would get me help, make me normal again. My mom just cried. When I told my dad that I didn't need help, that this is my normal, he disowned me. He even told my mom that she was to have no contact with me, ever again, right there in front of me." Here Nick paused to let out a humorless laugh, "She told him that if he tried to keep her from contacting me, she'd have divorce papers drawn up the minute they got back to Texas." He paused again, a faraway look in his eyes, "I think they have some kind of unspoken agreement now, that as long as he doesn't know she's contacting me, then he doesn't care."

Nick leaned his head back against the back of the sofa, closing his eyes for a moment. Greg thought he was done speaking, then, very softly, "I know you're probably wondering why I've told you all of this."

Greg started to shake his head, say, "No," but Nick went on as if he hadn't spoken.

"I've- I've had a couple of relationships, over the years, with guys. They- they always ended before anything... intimate... happened. I'm not sure if that was because on some subconscious level I was afraid of the intimacy – because of Todd – or if it was just the simple fact that I didn't want them." Nick turned his head, opening his eyes to look at Greg. "I didn't want them," he repeated, before, "I wanted you."

Greg sucked in a breath, eyes widening.

Again, Nick continued before Greg could say anything, "I just wanted to let you know what you'd be getting into. After what Todd did to me, I don't know if I'll ever be able to be intimate with you." He paused again, taking one of Greg's hands in his. He lifted it to his lips, placing a gentle kiss on Greg's knuckles. "But I'd like to try."

Tears brimming in his eyes again with the thought of how close he was to having his dream fulfilled, Greg gently pulled Nick's hand to his own lips. "I'll take you, any way I can get you, Nick. We'll go as slowly as you need. If you can never be intimate with me, I don't care, as long as we can go to sleep together, and wake up together. Love is so much more than skin on skin."

Moving his hand the short distance from Greg's lips to his cheek, Nick laid his palm there, brushing a tear away with his thumb.

"The whole shower thing, was that the result of a nightmare?" Greg asked gently.

With a sigh, Nick said, "Yeah. Losing Warrick, the case with that kid, just all got to be too much, I guess. Haven't dreamed of what Todd did to me in a long time. It was just so real. Didn't mean to stay in there as long as I did."

"I'm just glad these walls are paper thin. The shower running so long woke me up." Nick's hand was still laying against Greg's cheek, Greg's hand still over top of Nick's. A slight twist of his head and Greg was able to brush his lips across Nick's wrist. "I've always wondered what it would be like to do that," Greg murmured with a sigh a moment later.

"Was it everything you thought it would be?" Nick asked shyly, eyes intent on Greg's face.

A contented smile settled on Greg's face, as he huskily said, "Even better." Lacing his fingers into Nick's, Greg pulled the older man's hand away from his face, bringing their intertwined hands down to rest on his knee, where he just looked at them for several minutes, before looking back up at Nick. Their hands looked natural together, as though they'd been made to compliment each other.

"Would it be okay if I kissed you?" Greg asked, looking shyly up into Nick's eyes from below his eyelashes.

Biting his lower lip again, Nick nodded. He shifted a bit on the couch, seemingly uncertain what to do, when Greg scooted closer to him. Leaving some air between their thighs on the couch, Greg slowly leaned in towards Nick, carefully gaging the older man's reaction to his movements. Greg was ready to pull back, if Nick showed the slightest hint of fear. When there was no flight response from Nick, Greg pressed his lips to the older man's, marveling at the smoothness of them against his own.

It was Nick who deepened the kiss, opening his mouth in invitation to Greg. The first touch of tongues was tentative, Greg allowing Nick to seek him out, so he wouldn't feel that Greg was invading or violating him. In his dreams, Greg had imagined how Nick would taste. He'd always settled on mint and spice. The reality of Nick's taste was so much more than his imagination had ever conjured up. A taste so wild and earthy, it was just Nick.

Determined not to let himself get carried away, Greg pulled back a moment later. He did let a large smile take over his face, as he soared on cloud nine.

"I liked that, too," Nick said softly, resting his forehead against Greg's, as they both struggled to catch their breath.

It was about that time, Greg's house phone had begun to ring.

Pulling away with a muttered, "Shit!" Greg scrambled off the couch and ran for the nearest extension. After a quick glance at the caller I.D. display, Greg answered with a hasty, "Sanders," when he saw it was Grissom's cell phone number.

"You know, Greg, when you're on call, you're supposed to keep your cell with you," Grissom's voice held a hint of annoyance.

"You can explain to Ecklie why I constantly have to have phones replaced because they're waterlogged, then. I'm not taking my phone in the shower with me," he lied through his teeth, hoping the older man would buy the lie.

"Point taken, Greg. I need you to meet me out in Henderson. We've got another little boy's body. Found under the same conditions as the body yesterday."

Greg felt the color drain from his face, and he turned away from the couch, where Nick still sat, hoping the other man wouldn't notice his pallor. "Okay. Give me the address. I'll be there in half an hour."

Grissom rattled off the address to Greg, then hung up.

His posture must have given something away, because he suddenly felt Nick's strong arms snake around his waist, felt Nick's breath against the shell of his ear, as the older man said, "What's wrong?"

Resisting the urge to moan and press himself into the older man, Greg spoke quietly, "That was Grissom. Another little boy was found. Same condition as the first one. I'm meeting Gris in Henderson."

Greg felt Nick's forehead touch his shoulder, as the other man leaned his head against Greg, heard the muttered, "Fuck!"

Pulling gently free of Nick's arms, Greg turned so he was facing the other man. His hand instinctually reached up to cup Nick's cheek, as he said, "We're going to catch the sick son-of-a-bitch, Nicky! I swear it!"

Nodding jerkily, Nick spoke softly, "Yeah, yeah. You're right, we will!"

When Greg met Nick's eyes, he could still see the pain there, but it was muted, not as predominant as it had been when Greg had found Nick in the shower.

Leaning in to kiss Nick's other cheek, Greg said, "I gotta go get dressed. Grissom's already pissed that I didn't answer my cell. If I'm longer than the thirty minutes I promised, he'll probably blow a fuse." Pulling back reluctantly, he turned and headed for his room.

Only to stop not a step later, as Nick said, "I'm going with you."

Turning back, Greg ran through several possible responses, before settling on, "It's your night off, Nicky. Stay home, relax, recharge, forget about work for a while." Nick started to say something, but Greg was pretty sure he knew what the other man was going to say, so he cut him off with, "I'll tell you all about it when I get home. This is our case, and even knowing how it's going to affect you – because it will affect you – I won't keep anything from you."

Nick just stood there, blinking at him, for a moment, as though trying to figure out how Greg had read his mind. Finally, he found his voice, "It's not any of that, Greg. I just don't want to be alone with my thoughts right now. I'm going with you."

Realizing that the situation had the possibility of turning into their first fight, Greg acquiesced with a quiet, "Okay. Let's go get dressed and go."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

They were back in Henderson, but they might as well have been on the other side of the world, for the differences between this house and the house they'd found themselves at the day before.

Where the other house showed very little outward signs of the renovation going on within, and very little outward signs that it was vacant, it was obvious that this home was vacant. The front lawn was brown and grown over, and the windows were all boarded up. The front door hung drunkenly off of its hinges, and the roof was missing tiles in places.

The night was lit up by the circling red and blue lights on top of two patrol cars, and the strobes on Brass's Taurus were still flashing. A department issue Tahoe was parked behind Brass's Taurus, and now Nick pulled his SUV up behind the Tahoe.

Neither man moved to immediately exit the SUV. Nick sat staring at the steering wheel, where his hands were clenched tight enough to turn his knuckles white, and Greg sat watching Nick, concern evident in his gaze.

"You sure you want to do this?" Greg asked, reaching over and resting his hand on Nick's forearm. He was satisfied to see Nick's grip on the steering wheel loosen, blood flooding back into his knuckles.

Turning to meet Greg's eyes, Nick nodded, managed a weak sounding, "Yeah. I'll be fine, as long as you're there."

A small smile spread over Greg's face. It faded almost as quickly as it formed, though, at the thought of what awaited them in that house. "We better get in there."

Nick gave another jerky nod, taking the keys from the ignition as he opened the door.

Field kits in one hand, tactical flashlights in the other, they headed for the door of the vacant house. Flashing their I.D.s at the uni stationed at the door, they ducked inside.

They found themselves in the living room. It was obvious the place had been used for nefarious purposes for some time. The once white or off white walls were covered in colorful graffiti, there were a couple of bare mattresses on the discolored and rotten carpet, and the place held the stench of decay, feces, and urine.

In the middle of the room stood Brass and Grissom. The two seemed to be having a heated discussion, but it ended the moment Nick and Greg walked in.

"Greg," Grissom acknowledged him with a slight nod, then turned towards Nick. "Nick, what are you doing here?" When Nick looked about to answer, Grissom held up a hand, "Hold that thought. Greg, go start photographing the body. We're still waiting for Dave to show up. Remember, don't touch anything until he gets here."

With a small sigh that only Nick seemed to pick up on, as his eyes flickered Greg's way, Greg said, "Sure thing, boss," and hefted his field kit to head deeper into the decrepit house. After casting a quick look at Nick, in which he tried to project comforting feelings, Greg followed Brass's quick directions on where to find the boy's body.

The same officer from the day before was standing in the hallway outside the bedroom the boy had been found in. He was nearly as green as he had been the day before, but it looked like he'd had the sense not to venture into the room this time.

Setting his kit on the floor in the hallway, Greg quickly slipped on latex gloves and settled the camera's strap around his neck before taking a steadying breath and moving quickly into the room. After a quick sweep with his flashlight to orient himself to the room's layout, Greg set to work photographing the body. It was posed in the exact same way as the one the night before.

As he worked, his ears strained to pick up what Grissom might be saying to Nick in the other room. The walls seemed to be too well insulated to allow the sounds to carry, though, because while he could hear the sounds of voices, he couldn't pick out any words.

Greg was still in the middle of snapping pictures when Nick finally walked into the room, awkwardly pulling on his own pair of latex gloves while still holding his flashlight.

Pausing in his work, Greg straightened to look at Nick. What he was about to say died on his lips, though, as Grissom walked into the room, Dave a step or two behind him. The other three men waited while Greg quickly finished snapping photos, then they all knelt around the body. Greg positioning himself so he was next to Nick.

The quick glance he risked at Nick from the corner of his eye told Greg all he needed to know about how being here was affecting him. The lines around Nick's eyes and on his forehead had become more pronounced again, and the way the muscles of Nick's jaws were bunched showed that the older man was clenching his jaw, gritting his teeth.

Dave looked around at Grissom, then Nick, then Greg, before he began to speak. "He bears a striking resemblance to our John Doe from last night. I wonder if they're brothers?"

Shifting ever so slightly on his heels, Greg swivelled his body just enough for his knee to come into contact with Nick's thigh, in what he hoped would be a comforting manner to Nick, but would just seem accidental to the other two men.

Grissom gave Dave a look that said, "Facts only!" before saying, "We can confirm or disprove that with DNA, Dave. Tell us about the boy."

Giving a sheepish grin, Dave said, "Sorry. He's approximately seven or eight years old. Showing the same signs of sexual trauma as the first DB." Looking at the thermometer he had inserted in the boy's liver moments ago, he continued, "TOD approximately twenty-four to thirty-six ours ago. If the two boys are related, I'd hazard they both died about the same time." He cringed again, as Grissom gave him that look again, but didn't back down this time. "No apparent cause of death, same as the first boy."

Leveling a stare at Dave that could have bored through metal, Grissom said, "Dave, you tell Doc Robbins that these two boys have become his priority. Screw day shift! Two dead boys is two too many!"

"I'm sure he'll agree with you," Dave said, as he motioned to his assistants, who were waiting out in the hall.

Straightening and moving out of the way, Grissom addressed Nick and Greg. "I'll process in here. Nick, you and Greg take the rest of the house. I don't think this is the primary, but we're going to treat it like it is, just in case. Anything not bolted down in some way is going back to the lab for processing. Everything else gets printed and swabbed for biologicals. Find every scrap of trace you can."

"No problem," was Nick's seemingly easy response, though Greg knew differently. Nick hid his pain well, not wanting to disappoint Grissom by seeming weak.

Greg just nodded, afraid he might let slip some of the strain he was feeling. His anxiety level always ramped up when he worked cases with Grissom. He knew he had a lot to live up to, if he ever wanted to be anything like the stoic CSI. Not that he wanted to be stoic, he just wanted to be as good a CSI as Grissom. Add to that anxiety the concern he was feeling for Nick, and Greg felt sure he must combust spontaneously from it. He hoped his anxiety might ease, once he could find out what Grissom had talked to Nick about, but that could only happen if the two got a moment alone to talk.

Somehow, Nick seemed to sense that Greg needed to talk to him, because instead of heading back to the front of the house, where Brass and a uni were, he headed deeper into the house, motioning Greg to follow him.

They wound up in the kitchen – which, like the rest of the house – had seen better days. The linoleum was cracked, dirt caked, and stained. The walls were as badly tagged as anywhere else in the house. The appliances had long since been carted off. The only things that remained that made this room a kitchen were the cabinets on the walls, the counter tops, and the sink. A few of the cabinets still had doors, but they hung from broken hinges.

Setting his kit on the floor and opening it, Nick began to go through its contents. Greg followed his lead, setting his own kit on the floor near Nick's, before murmuring, "What did Gris want to talk to you about?"

"He wanted to know how I knew about this. I told him I stayed at your place last night, and was still there when he called." Looking over at Greg, he said, "It didn't seem to surprise him." When Greg just shrugged, Nick continued, "Anyway, he politely suggested I get a life, so I don't end up like Sara." With another glance at Greg, and a small smirk, he said, "I told him I had a life, and as of today, it's looking a lot better than it has in a while."

"So that's why he gave me that calculating look when I followed you out of the room," Greg replied with a small smile of his own. Looking back into his kit, Greg picked up his ALS, after some careful consideration. "I probably don't want to see what this is going to reveal, but gotta start somewhere."

"Yeah, I think I'm going to go take a quick look around the rest of the house, see what we're up against. If there are any more mattresses than those two in the living room, and the one in the room where the body was – and I'm willing to bet there are – then we're probably going to need a truck to come pick them up, along with a roll of industrial sized plastic wrap." There was a hint of humor in Nick's voice, but it was still overshadowed by the toll the case was taking on him.

Glancing up from where he had crouched down and illuminated a spot on the floor with his ALS, Greg gave Nick a reassuring nod. "Sure. If you find anything interesting, give me a holler." Before Nick could move away, Greg reached up and took his hand, brushing his lips across the back of it.

Smiling at Greg, Nick squeezed his hand, then continued on his way.

Six hours, countless swabs, bindles, and fingerprint tape later, as well as a large roll of industrial sized plastic wrap, and a cargo truck to haul the six plastic wrapped mattresses in, and they had finally finished processing the "vacant" house.

Standing out by Nick's SUV, Greg stretched his arms above his head, trying to work the kinks out of his shoulders and back from being hunched over for so long. His thighs were screaming at him from spending so much time crouching on the floor. While he couldn't help thinking they were probably wasting their time, he had done his best to be thorough in his collection of anything that could be considered evidence.

They would be on their way back to the lab soon, and Greg was sure they would be putting in just as many hours there, as they processed all of the evidence they had collected here. Wendy would be instantly swamped with DNA evidence to process, and they'd be adding to that, as they got the mattresses processed. Hodges wouldn't be quite so overwhelmed, as they hadn't found as much trace, but he'd still be getting his fair share of evidence to deal with. There'd probably be trace on the mattresses, too.

Greg hadn't realized he'd gotten lost in his thoughts until a car door slamming made him jump.

"You okay, Greg?" Grissom asked, changing direction mid-stride. He stopped in front of Nick's SUV, that calculating look back on his face as he considered the younger man.

"Just lost in thought. Anxious to get back to the lab and start processing the rest of the evidence." He avoided voicing his speculations, as Grissom frowned heavily on speculating. He relied on hard science and the evidence to tell the story of what had happened, so Greg strove to do the same.

"Nick's almost done inside. When he finishes, you guys stop and get something to eat."

At the mention of food, Greg's stomach growled. Looking down at his stomach with a look of mock betrayal on his face, Greg laughed. "That sounds good."

Giving Greg one more look, Grissom said, "He's been through a lot, Greg. Don't hurt him. That being said, he seems happier today." With that, Grissom turned and resumed his course to his Tahoe.

Blinking at Grissom's retreating back, Greg murmured, more to himself than to Grissom, "I'm incapable of hurting him. I love him." He didn't notice Nick approaching from the house.

"You say something, Greg?" Nick asked, passing the younger man on his way to the back of the SUV to deposit his field kit.

"Nope! Not a thing. Didn't say anything. See, this is me saying nothing," Greg started to babble, wondering if the older man truly hadn't heard what he said, or if he was just looking for confirmation.

The baffled look on Nick's face caused Greg to relax, as he decided it was the former. Greg had seen too many relationships end before they even got started because someone uttered those three words way to early. He wasn't willing to risk what he'd just gained. He wanted to gain Nick's trust, had promised to take everything as slowly as Nick needed. Saying "I love you" not even a day after confessing feelings, was definitely not slow.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Even in a town like Las Vegas, there were actually fast food places that closed at some point for the night. Along The Strip, though, most of them were open all night, at least for the drive thru. Nick and Greg had decided they didn't just want to grab something from the drive thru and eat at the lab, they wanted to go inside, forget about work and spend some time together for the time it took to order and eat.

The dining room of the McDonald's they chose was mostly deserted. A homeless man sat nursing a cup of coffee in a far corner, and a woman with bloodshot eyes sat at another table slowly eating a breakfast platter as if it were her last meal. Greg decided she'd probably blown her life's savings at one of the tables, or at the slots, and she probably thought this would be her last meal. He hoped she wouldn't become the next body they had to process.

He and Nick were standing a ways back from the counter, trying to decide what they were hungry for. The crew person standing behind the counter, waiting to take their order, was a young woman in about her mid-twenties. She was eyeing both men appreciatively, though she seemed to have taken a particular fancy to Greg, much to his embarrassment.

Noticing the woman's interest, Nick leaned in towards Greg, as though to whisper conspiratorially into his ear, and said, "What do you think of PDAs?"

Twisting his head to look at Nick with a raised eyebrow, Greg said, "You really have to ask me that?" His heart skipped a beat though, as this hadn't been something he'd been expecting from the older man. Apparently, Nick's trepidations only applied to physical intimacy involving the removal of clothing.

Nick didn't appear shy or nervous about publicly displaying his sexuality, as he slipped his arm around Greg's lower back, pulling the younger man against him as they moved up to the counter to place their order.

Greg could almost read the woman's thoughts, as her gaze strayed down to Nick's hand resting comfortably on Greg's right hip, _Man, the saying must be true. All the good-looking men are either already taken... or gay._

When Greg reached for his wallet, to pay for breakfast, Nick batted his hand away, "I've got this, G. You can pay next time."

Giving Nick a wide smile, Greg playfully said, "You can bet our next date will be someplace better than this, then!"

When Nick returned his smile, with interest, Greg was happy to see a bit more of the tension drain away from the older man's deep brown eyes.

Taking the two empty coffee cups the cashier was holding out for them, Greg wandered over to the beverage station to fill them up, while Nick waited for their tray of food.

Several minutes later, they were comfortably seated across from each other in one of the restaurant's many booths, digging into their food. Even if they'd wanted to talk about the case – which they didn't – they couldn't talk about it in a public place like this, so they contented themselves with eating quietly.

They'd been eating in companionable silence for several minutes, when Greg looked at Nick with a huge grin on his face.

Catching the younger mans' look, Nick said, "What?"

His mouth too full of food to comment, Greg just reached across the table and wiped at a drop of ketchup on Nick's chin. He wiped the ketchup onto a napkin from his thumb, and after managing to swallow his mouthful of food without choking, he laughed, "As cute as you look with ketchup dripped on your chin, I don't think you'd want to go back to the lab like that."

Taking another large bite of pancakes, Greg felt a drop of syrup hit his own chin, and begin to slide down. He had just picked up his napkin and was about to wipe the sticky liquid away, when Nick murmured, "Let me repay the favor."

Nick's thumb brushed across Greg's chin, collecting the golden brown syrup, only he didn't wipe it from his thumb onto a napkin, as Greg had. Greg watched in wide eyed fascination, as Nick stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked the sweet substance from it. Throughout the action, Nick's eyes had remained locked on Greg's, and Greg wondered what the other man was thinking.

Greg knew full well what he himself was thinking. He was thinking that he had to control his body's reaction to what Nick was doing, or he'd have a very obvious problem, as blood tried to rush to his groin.

Giving a self-satisfied smile, Nick picked his fork back up and continued eating his breakfast.

"Fucking tease!" Greg growled under his breath, just loudly enough for the words to carry across the table to the other man.

"Hey, you started it!" Nick replied with a cocky grin.

"I didn't stick my thumb in my mouth and suck on it like it was a different body part!" Greg growled back, shifting uncomfortably in the booth, and blinking his eyes furiously, to try to focus past the sudden haze of desire that had settled over them. "I promised you we'd go slow, but you're going to make it damned difficult, if you're going to do things like that!"

Giving Greg a sheepish look, Nick mumbled, "Sorry. I guess you're right. I just couldn't resist."

Diverting his eyes from Nick's, Greg bit the inside of his cheek. He had to do something to get his mind off of the other man long enough to allow his blood to flow away from his groin. Increasing the pressure of his teeth on the soft flesh inside his cheek, Greg felt tears try to spring to his eyes, and knew he'd managed to do what he intended. Maintaining the pressure for a moment, to ensure the job was done, Greg finally released his grip, running his tongue over the area, to find out if he'd drawn blood. He didn't taste any, so that was a good sign.

Nick's concern filled eyes were on his, and he had his fork poised halfway between his plate and his open mouth, when Greg finally looked at him again.

By way of explanation, Greg said, "Just keep this in mind, Nicky, if you continue to tease me that way, the inside of my mouth is going to end up being hamburger."

"Point taken," Nick said, finally bringing the fork the rest of the way to his mouth.

Several minutes later, after finishing their meal and disposing of their trash, they walked hand in hand from the restaurant. Before parting ways to get in on opposite sides of the SUV, Nick pulled Greg against him, and placed a chaste kiss against the corner of the younger man's mouth.

Leaning his forehead against Greg's, Nick sighed, "I really don't want to go back to the lab." Greg could see the weight of the case settling back on Nick's shoulders again.

"You could drop me off and go back home. This is still technically your night off. I'm sure Gris would understand," Greg began, but Nick was shaking his head.

"It's the only way to get this monster off the street. Before another little boy dies."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Back at the lab, Grissom directed Nick and Greg to the garage, where they were to unload the mattresses they'd collected and begin processing them. Grissom had already checked in and distributed the rest of the evidence they had collected.

The cargo van had been backed into the garage, making it slightly easier to unload the mattresses, most of which were queen sized, and difficult enough in the best of circumstances for two grown men to handle. These were far from the best of circumstances, seeing how they were in the back of the cargo van, itself several feet off the concrete floor, and wrapped in thick plastic sheeting, which made for less than ideal hand grabs.

Much cursing – which was directed at the mattresses, not each other – later, they finally had all six mattresses stacked on the garage floor, two set aside from the rest to begin processing. They were both queen sized mattresses, both stained, the inner coils broken down in places, poking through the fabric quilting in others, whatever color they had once been was impossible to determine, as they were both extremely faded. One had been collected from the room where the boy's body had been found. The other had been in the living room.

With all of the biologicals the mattresses were surely covered in, as well as the possibility of creepy crawlies, both men had donned dark blue department issued coveralls over their clothing, and they were both wearing leather gloves, instead of latex gloves.

On a nearby workbench sat everything they would need to gather evidence from the mattresses: two compact alternative light sources, a plastic container full of swabs, several pairs of tweezers, another plastic container of evidence envelopes, and a third container of tape lifts.

"You want me to process that one?" Greg asked, indicating the mattress in front of Nick with a nod of his head. It was the one from the room the boy's body had been found in. He didn't want to seem over protective of Nick, as Nick wouldn't appreciate that, but he wanted to give him the option. Of course, they really had no idea if the child had been assaulted on any of the mattresses in that house. If he was, then it wasn't necessarily the mattress from the room he'd been found in.

Leaning over the mattress to cut the plastic open with the pair of scissors he held in his hand, Nick shook his head, "No, it's okay." He shot a small smile towards Greg. It was a look full of trust and admiration, and Greg decided it was because he wasn't trying to impose his own will on the larger man, take his choices away. "I'll let you know if I can't handle it," Nick said, as he handed Greg the scissors and began to push the plastic to the sides of the mattress, so it was out of his way.

Once Greg had his own mattress unwrapped, he grabbed one of the ALS units and shown it over the mattress he was processing. Letting out a small whistle, Greg said, "Ugh! These mattresses are nasty! There are semen stains on top of semen stains."

Almost no section of mattress was left untouched by the biological stains. There were old, dully glowing stains, and new brightly glowing stains, and stains glowing every spectrum in between.

Nick tried to hide the revulsion from his face, but Greg knew the other man too well for him to be able to completely disguise it, as he swept his own ALS unit over the mattress from the body room. Sitting back on his heels, Nick sighed, "Well, there's no point in gathering samples of all the stains, as some of them are obviously quite old. We'll collect samples from the most brightly glowing stains, as they're the most recent ones."

Still holding his ALS in one hand, Greg reached into the pocket of his coveralls with the other and pulled out a black Sharpie marker. He would use that to trace around the stains, then photograph them, and swab them. As he traced stains, he also collected several hairs, and some insects.

Holding up a specimen jar containing one of the insects he'd collected, Greg said, "I think this mattress has crabs. Yuck! Makes me itchy, just thinking about them."

Nick chuckled under his breath, holding up something he'd just picked up in a pair of tweezers. "Looks like this one's got them, too."

Bending back to his task, Greg thought he heard Nick humming a song. "What's that you're humming, Nicky?"

Glancing over at Greg with a heated look, Nick said, "It's Brad Paisley's _I'd Like to Check You for Ticks_."

Rolling his eyes and groaning, before biting into his inner cheek again, Greg said, "Me and my big mouth! I should have kept it shut! Hamburger, Nick, hamburger!"

Nick gave him an innocent smile, before turning back to his work.

Humming tunelessly to himself, Greg went back to work, allowing himself to become absorbed by what he was doing. Some time later, he thought he was nearly done with the mattress he was working on, when a thought occurred to him, causing him to blurt out in frustration, "Ah, shit!"

"What is it, what's wrong?" Nick asked, alarm evident on his face and in his voice, as he apparently thought Greg had somehow hurt himself.

"Just had an unpleasant thought," Greg said, wrinkling his nose.

"Don't burn out any brain cells, Einstein," Nick teased him good-naturedly.

Leveling a look at Nick that screamed, "Just you wait!" Greg allowed all traces of emotion to leave his face, as he dead-panned, "We have to process both sides of these mattresses."

Nick took several shuffled steps back, before sinking down to the floor on his butt with a shocked expression on his face. "Damn! You're right. I didn't even think of that! How long have we been at this, on just these two mattresses?"

Looking up at the clock on the wall above the door, Greg felt his heart sink, "We've been at this for three hours. That's six hours per mattress!"

Picking himself up from the floor, Nick resolutely went back to work, carefully flipping over the mattress he'd been working on and starting in on the back. "We're going to finish these two mattresses up, then we're going to turn in everything we've collected from them. Then we're going to go find Grissom, find out if there's anything else he needs us to do, before we go home for about twelve hours. We're already pulling a double, and I for one could use at least eight hours of sleep, as well as a good meal."

"When's the last time you had a home cooked meal, Nicky?" Greg asked, feeling his fatigue recede in a renewed surge of manic energy.

"Probably the last time Cath invited all of us to her place for dinner a few months back. I can cook, I just find it difficult for only myself."

"Same here," Greg replied. "You like chicken fajitas?" Nick nodded, so Greg went on, "Then that's what we're having for whatever meal it is when we finally get out of here. They're my specialty, and I've been craving them. You're going to love them, too."

Nick gave Greg an indulgent smile, as the younger man began to ramble on.

Catching the smile from the corner of his eye, Greg twisted to look at Nick, "What?"

Allowing his smile to widen, Nick said, "I love your voice, Greg. When you ramble on like that, it just means I get to hear more of it."

Stunned, Greg paused in his work to just stare at Nick for a moment, causing Nick to laugh at him.

"I do believe I managed to leave the infamous Greg Sanders – blabbermouth extraordinaire – speechless!"

"You - you like my voice?" Greg squeaked, when he finally found his voice again.

"It's one of the first things about you that attracted me," Nick said quietly, a wistful look crossing his features, before he turned back to the mattress in front of him again. "Come on, let's get these two mattresses done, so we can get out of here."

A little over three hours later, they had finished up with the two mattresses, wrapped them back up in their thick plastic shrouds, and stored them with the other four mattresses in the large evidence locker maintained in the garage for oversized evidence.

As they headed deeper into the lab, they ran into Grissom heading their way.

"Oh, good. You two done with those mattresses?"

They looked at each other with a snort of laughter, causing Grissom to blink at them in impatience.

"I don't think there was a joke in that," he said a bit sternly.

Glancing at Greg again, Nick spoke up, "Sorry, Gris. We brought six mattresses back to the lab with us. Each mattress has to be processed front and back. It took us six hours to process the two we got done." To make sure Grissom realized that was six hours per mattress, Nick said, "That wasn't three hours per mattress, that was six hours per mattress. We each processed one."

Nodding his understanding, Grissom said, "Okay, that actually makes sense. Suppose you need a break from them for a while, then."

Nick and Greg exchanged another knowing look, before turning to face their boss again.

Grissom held out a ten card to Greg, "These are the prints from the first body. Day shift never got around to scanning them into the system and running them." Turning towards Nick, Grissom said, "Doc Robbins just called a few minutes ago, he's got the preliminary done on both boys. Let's go print the second boy and see what he's got for us."

Greg walked as far as the print lab with the other two men. Tapping the ten card against the fingertips of his left hand, he stared after them, concern written plainly on his face, until they had disappeared around the corner at the end of the hallway. He hoped Nick would still be in the mood for those fajitas, but it wouldn't surprise him if Nick lost his appetite, after having to see those two little boys laid out on shiny stainless steel in the morgue.

Putting Nick out of his mind for the time being, Greg strode into the print lab, and settled down at the computer. Within minutes, he had scanned the boy's prints and had the computer searching every database a small child's fingerprints might be found in. With any luck, the school the boy attended would have taken his prints as part of the Safe Schools Program. The program ensured that there was a recent school picture and fingerprints on file for every child registered for kindergarten through highschool in Nevada. There was a push to include taking a DNA sample, as well, but there were still opponents that said it was an invasion of privacy.

While he waited, Greg sat back in the rolling desk chair, and propped his feet up on the table that held the computer. His eyelids began to get heavy, and soon they had drifted shut, his chin dropping to rest on his chest.

A firm stomach pressed against the back of his head, and a strong set of hands kneading his shoulders brought Greg awake some time later. Looking up, he met Nick's exhaustion and pain filled eyes.

"How long have I been asleep?" Greg groggily asked, finally straightening. He looked at the computer, his already souring mood becoming more bitter as the flashing "No match found" box caught his attention.

"I don't know, but it's nearly noon, if that's of any help. Grissom and I just finished up with Doc Robbins." Greg watched Nick swallow forcefully, as though trying to keep his stomach contents down. Not that there would be much to come up, since it had been so long since their breakfast platters at McDonald's.

"Do I want to know?" Greg asked gently. He pulled another chair over for Nick to sit in.

Sinking gratefully into the offered chair, Nick sighed, "Doc's pretty sure they were both strangled. Petechial hemorrhaging and postmortem bruising around the neck in the four plus one configuration supports it. He's going to run a tox panel to be sure, but he said it looks pretty cut and dry." Nick rubbed at the sides of his throat, as if he could feel those fingers around his own throat. Tears shimmered in his eyes, and he choked out, "Doc said there were signs of... re-repeated p-penetrations." Now the tears were falling freely, as he cried out, "Those poor little boys!"

Pushing the print lab door closed, so Nick's sobs would be muffled, and less noticeable to passers by, Greg slid his chair next to Nick's and pulled the older man into his arms.

"Let it out, Nicky. Just let it out!" Greg crooned in Nick's ear, wrapping his arms tightly around Nick.

A few minutes later, sobs under control, Nick pulled back. "I already told Grissom we're taking the next twelve hours off. Let's go home. I-I've got to get away from this case, at least for a while."

Several minutes later, sitting in Nick's SUV, as they pulled out of the crime lab parking garage, Greg said, "You still up for those fajitas?"

Giving Greg a weak smile, Nick said, "I'd like that."

Reaching into his pocket, Greg pulled out his keys and took one off the ring. "Here's a spare key to my apartment. I imagine you want to run home, check mail and messages, grab some more clean clothes. I've got to run to the store and pick up some groceries. This way, if I'm still at the store, you can let yourself in." Greg pressed the key into Nick's hand, squeezing it briefly between their hands.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

After Nick dropped him off at his apartment, Greg took his mail in and checked his own messages before heading out to the grocery store. He had expected Nick to already be back at his apartment, when he returned with a trunk full of groceries an hour and a half later, but wasn't concerned when the older man wasn't yet there.

It took him three trips from the car to the kitchen to get all of the groceries transferred to the kitchen counter. From there, he began unloading grocery bags. Most of the items got put immediately away, but things like the bell peppers and onions he'd gotten for the fajitas, he set on the counter by the sink. He set a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts on the other side of the sink, near the stove, before putting away the last few groceries.

He had already cut up the chicken and put it in a skillet to begin cooking, and was just starting to cut up the bell peppers, when he heard the apartment door open and close. As he continued working, Greg could sense Nick's eyes on him, from where he'd taken up residence in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Adding the bell peppers and onions, along with some fajita seasoning to the skillet with the chicken, Greg pulled out a wooden spoon and gave the mixture a stir.

After placing a lid on the skillet and turning the fire down under it, so the contents would begin to simmer, Greg moved back to the sink, where he ran some water to wash up the dishes he'd used thus far. He'd just turned off the water, when he felt Nick's arms wrap around his waist.

The older man pressed his body against Greg's, and whispered huskily in Greg's ear, "Keep your hands on the edge of the sink. I wanna feel your body."

The tone of Nick's voice, as much as the words, caused the blood to rush to Greg's cock, and he could feel it thicken and lengthen, could feel the material of his pants constricting it nearly to the point of pain. Leaning his head back against Nick's shoulder, he let out a needy moan, as the older man's hands began to move across his chest.

One of Nick's hands found one of Greg's nipples and rubbed it to a hard peak through the material of Greg's shirt, while the other reached for the hem, desperate to touch skin.

Greg's back arched, and he let out a strangled moan of, "Nicky! Oh, my god!" It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to take his hands from the sink and touch in return.

And Nick wasn't helping matters, with the way he was whispering in Greg's ear, "Been thinking about touching you all day, Greg! Fuck, I want to touch your cock! Are you hard for me? Can I give you a hand job?"

Greg could feel himself melting, thought surely his knees must give way. And he'd never been this hard in his life, never! "Please!" was the hoarse whisper that fell from his lips. And this surely was not what he'd expected to happen. This was not the cautious, shy creature he'd expected Nick to become when it came to touching. But then, perhaps that was why Nick had demanded he keep his hands on the sink.

Both of Nick's hands were now at the fly of Greg's pants, awkwardly working them open. When that task was complete, Nick pushed Greg's pants down just enough to expose Greg's throbbing length. Greg sighed in relief, as the constriction finally eased, only to gasp in a breath a moment later, as Nick's hand wrapped firmly around the shaft of his cock.

"Slow your breathing, babe, or you're going to hyperventilate," Nick spoke quietly into Greg's ear, as the younger man gasped in another breath.

Greg turned his head to the side, so his face was against Nick's neck, "H-having you touch me... Oh, God! Feels so good! N-never thought I'd get to experience this!" Nick hadn't even moved his hand on Greg's length yet, but Greg could already feel his balls drawing tight against his body, the heat building low in his belly. "I'm not going to last long, Nicky!"

"Love you, Greg," those three words, whispered into Greg's ear, were Greg's undoing. Semen shot from his cock in long, thick streams, to coat Nick's hand and the cabinet they'd been standing in front of.

When his orgasm subsided, Greg's legs nearly gave way. If Nick hadn't already been supporting most of Greg's weight against him, the younger man would have fallen. Tucking Greg carefully back into his pants, Nick zipped him back up, then helped him over to the kitchen table.

"The fajitas," Greg mumbled, suddenly very tired.

With a smile, Nick said, "They're okay. One more good stir, and they'll be ready to eat."

"Okay," Greg responded, crossing his arms on the table and laying his head on them, his eyes already beginning to slip closed.

Chuckling quietly to himself, Nick muttered under his breath, "Guess I shouldn't have expected anything else, after pulling a double." He fixed himself a plate, ate quickly, then put everything away, before deciding on the best course of action for getting Greg from the table to the bed.

As Nick finally got Greg undressed and into bed, Greg roused enough to murmur quietly, "Love you, too, Nicky!" before burrowing into Nick's side and slipping back into an exhausted sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Groaning into wakefulness, as his stomach rumbled again, Greg sat up and rubbed at his eyes. The already familiar weight of Nick, still sleeping heavily beside him, made him smile, even as his stomach protested its hollowness yet again.

Leaning over Nick, he ran his fingers lightly through the other man's dark hair, before placing a soft kiss on Nick's forehead, Greg finally rose from the bed. Before leaving the room, he glanced quickly at the clock, and saw it was nearing one a.m. Grissom would be expecting them both back at the lab soon.

In the kitchen, as he set up the coffee pot and pulled the leftover fajitas from the fridge, he thought back to the afternoon before. The memory of Nick's hands on his body had Greg stifling a moan, biting the inside of his cheek again.

"Hey!" Nick's quiet voice caused Greg to nearly drop the plastic microwave container.

Readjusting his grip on the container, Greg turned to regard Nick, who was leaning against the doorjamb leading to the living room. Nick wore a pair of gray cotton athletic shorts, and his hair was still sleep mussed. He had his arms crossed casually over his bare chest, causing the muscles in them to bulge slightly under his skin.

"You gonna heat that up, so we can eat, or are you going to stand there and stare at me?" Nick asked, nodding towards the container in Greg's hand.

"I think I'll put this in the microwave, then stare at you," Greg grinned, moving towards the microwave, as he popped the lid open to vent. After setting the microwave for three minutes, Greg padded over to stand in front of Nick.

Resting his hands on Nick's arms, where they were still crossed over his chest, Greg allowed his grin to become a full blown smile, and leaned into the older man.

Nick uncrossed his arms, snaking them around Greg's waist.

As their lips met, Greg pressed himself against Nick, and their growing arousals brushed together. Greg knew it had been the wrong thing to do, nearly the instant he did it, but by then, it was too late. Nick froze, the sudden fear in his eyes unmistakable. It was gone almost as quickly as it had come, but it had still been there, and it nearly killed Greg to see it, and know he had caused that look in Nick's eyes.

Pulling back, Greg crossed his arms, tucking his hands under them to hide the way they were suddenly trembling. Stammering, tears shimmering in his eyes, Greg said, "I-I'm sorry, Nicky! I'm so sorry!"

Nick took a step toward Greg. Looking earnestly into Greg's eyes, he said, "It's okay, G. You didn't do anything wrong. I have to test my boundaries somehow." Reaching up, Nick brushed his knuckles across Greg's cheek, wiping away a few tears that had managed to fall. "God, Greg! I love you so much! I want you so bad I can fucking taste it! I swear to you, if it's the last thing I ever do, we will make love!"

When Nick moved his hand from Greg's cheek around the back of his neck, and applied a bit of pressure, Greg went with it, allowing himself to be drawn back towards the older man. Just before their lips touched, Greg whispered, "I love you, too, Nick!"

The microwave beeping insistently broke them apart a moment later. Pulling reluctantly back, Greg sighed, "We'd better eat and get going. Grissom's going to call one or both of us, if we don't get to the lab soon."

Nodding, Nick said, "Yeah, you're right. I'll be so happy when this case is solved!"

After dishing out food for both of them, Greg sat down at the table and tucked into his. As he watched Nick mostly picking at his food, pushing a piece of chicken around on his plate listlessly, Greg spoke around a mouthful of food, "Didn't like them after all?" though he suspected that was far from the case.

"Hell, no, G! Best fajitas I think I've ever eaten!" Nick said, grinning widely at Greg, though the grin did nothing to hide the look in his eyes.

"It's those two boys, isn't it?" Greg finally asked, after swallowing his latest bite of fajita.

Nodding sadly, Nick said, "We still don't know who they are. There's got to be someone out there missing them. If they were mine, I'd be frantic with worry! How is it that no one's reported them missing!"

It wasn't really a question, but something occurred to Greg, and he spoke up in answer, "Maybe they have tried reporting the kids missing. Kids that age, what do you think the unis at PD are going to say?"

Meeting Greg's eyes, his own narrowing in thought, Nick said, "They'd suggest the boys probably ran away. PD won't take a missing persons report for forty-eight hours after someone disappears."

Greg picked up where Nick stopped, "We're already somewhat past the forty-eight hour mark, if they were taken just before their deaths, and not taken much earlier than that."

In unison, both men said, "We've got to go through the missing persons reports."

With a new sense of purpose at the thought of possibly finding out the identity of the two boys, both men turned back to their food with renewed vigor.

As Greg was rising to clear the table of their dishes, Nick caught Greg's wrist in his hand. Scooting his chair back, Nick murmured, "C'mere," and pulled Greg down so the younger man was straddling his thighs.

Thinking back to what had happened not even a half hour ago, Greg spoke uncertainly, "Nicky?"

"Just need to kiss you again, then we'll go, G," Nick murmured huskily, wrapping a hand around the back of the younger man's neck and pulling him down for a kiss that quickly intensified.

As their tongues danced between their mouths, Greg felt Nick's hands travel down his back, to his ass. The pressure of Nick's fingers gently kneading each cheek caused him to let out a heady moan. Nick's hands tightened, and Greg felt himself being pulled forward. Breaking the kiss, Greg met Nick's eyes, silently questioning the older man.

Nick nodded slightly, as he finally pulled Greg close enough for their rapidly hardening cocks to brush together through two layers of cotton. Moaning in ecstacy, Greg let his head fall back, eyes closing.

Lips attached themselves high on Greg's neck, nearly under his chin, and he felt teeth graze over his sensitized flesh. There would be no way he could cover the mark, and Grissom would probably be pissed, as it was unprofessional to have visible hickeys at work. Right now, he didn't really care, though.

Both men jumped, when Nick's cell phone began to ring. Scrambling off of Nick's lap, Greg resumed his interrupted chore, neatly stacking the dirty dishes and taking them to the sink.

Nick's answered, "Stokes," was almost normal sounding, but not quite. He still sounded just a bit breathless and husky. Greg figured Grissom – who else could it possibly be? – would assume Nick had still been sleeping.

After a few, "A huhs," and "Okays," followed by, "We'll be there," (which caused Greg's eyebrow to raise) Nick snapped his phone shut.

"_We'll_ be there?" Greg asked, cocking his head to the side, as he looked over at Nick.

"Grissom seems to know about us already. I guess he's not as totally inept at human relations as we all seem to think. Anyway, Doc Robbins found some fibers in the second boy's hair. Gris needs me to look at them. He wants you to start going through missing persons reports. Guess he reached the same conclusion we did." While Nick was an amazing detective in everything he did, his specialty was hair and fibers.

Moving to stand in front of the younger man, Nick trailed his thumb over the mark he'd made. "Damn! Guess I got a little carried away."

Capturing Nick's hand, and holding it against his neck, over the mark, Greg gazed into the other man's eyes. "I don't mind. Just next time, maybe a little lower, so I can cover it for work." Not that he wanted to cover it. He wanted the whole world to see it. He wanted to show it off, tell anyone who would listen exactly who had done that to him.

Reluctantly pulling away, Nick said, "Gris said to be there in twenty minutes, or he'd send a pair of unis over here to drag us in. I don't think he was joking."

A/N: Sorry this one took me a bit longer than usual. Had problems writing this chapter, not really sure why. I think the rest will come more easily, though. As always, thanks for the reviews and alerts!


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Passing Grissom's office on his way to the A/V lab, Greg happened to glance in and catch sight of Sara. She was sitting in one of the visitor's chairs, staring off into space and idly tapping her fingers on her leg. She held a paperback book in her other hand, but it was closed, so she hadn't been reading it.

"Hey, Sar!" Greg called softly, stepping into the office. "How you holding up?"

Turning towards Greg, as she unfolded herself from the chair, Sara's eyes locked onto the love bite on Greg's neck. After a friendly hug, she pulled back again, eyes straying to the mark that stood out purple and black against Greg's creamy skin. "He must be special, if you let him do that to you," she said softly, not bothering to answer Greg's question.

Greg felt himself blush, "I never told you..." he trailed off.

Giving Greg a small smile that just revealed the gap in her front teeth, Sara said, "How long have we known each other, Greg? I've always prided myself on my observational skills. There were cues there to be read, if one knew how to read them. And unless I miss my guess, he's a CSI with a Texan drawl to die for."

"You're not weirded out, are you?" Greg allowed a small, nervous smile to settle on his face.

"Nah. I figured it out years ago. It was Nick I wasn't totally sure about. It seemed that every step he took towards you had him turning around and taking two away again. I guess he finally figured out what he wanted." She sighed, meeting Greg's eyes with her own concern filled brown eyes. "Be careful, Greg. He's lost his best friend. I think it would probably kill him if he lost you, too."

Greg knew Sara wasn't warning him to be careful with Nick, but to be careful with himself. While being a CSI wasn't nearly as dangerous as being a patrolman or detective, it could still be dangerous, as was evidence by all of the things that had happened to their own team over the years, culminating just days ago in Warrick's death at the hands of one of their own.

"Oh, good, Greg, there you are," Grissom's voice caused both Greg and Sara to jump, as they hadn't heard him enter the office.

"Hey, Grissom. I'm on my way to the A/V lab to start looking at missing persons reports. Just stopped in to say hey to Sara," Greg said, as he turned towards his boss. "Well, I guess I'll see you later, Sara," he said, turning back towards Sara momentarily, before heading out the door.

"Greg," Grissom's voice stopped Greg in his tracks.

Turning back towards Grissom, Greg said, "Yeah?"

"If you see Ecklie coming, you go the other way. He won't be as understanding of that as I am," Grissom gestured with his chin at Greg's neck.

"Sure thing." Greg turned towards the door again, feeling his face heat. This wasn't exactly the reaction he'd expected from Grissom.

"And Greg," Grissom said, stopping Greg once more.

"Yeah?"

"Tell Nick, not so high next time. You need to be able to cover those up."

Snorting out a half laugh, Greg said, "Yeah, we already talked about that." Before Grissom had a chance to stop him again, Greg high tailed it out of the office to the A/V lab.

After settling in at a computer terminal, Greg logged in and pulled up the program he needed. In this day and age, missing persons reports were digitized the moment they were taken. Pictures were scanned and attached to the relevant files, making it possible for police departments all over the world to access the information, if they thought they had found someone reported missing elsewhere.

After quickly pulling up the autopsy reports, which included pictures of the boys, Greg printed up a picture of each, to use for comparison against the missing persons reports. An addendum to both reports caught his eye, and he glanced quickly through it. DNA had finally come back on both boys, confirming that they were brothers. This would make his search through missing persons reports much easier.

After inserting a few search parameters, Greg clicked on the search button and waited. As he'd started the search with the parameters that it be narrowed to the Las Vegas area, it didn't take long to receive a list of brothers who'd been reported missing within the last seven days.

It wasn't a long list, only containing ten kids, five pairs of brothers. Clicking into the first report, Greg quickly dismissed it, as the kids looked nothing like the autopsy photos. It was the same with the second report, as well. The third one, however, had him dialing Brass's number.

The phone only rang twice, before Brass's voice was on the line, with his familiar greeting, "Brass."

"Brass, this is Greg. I think I may know who our two dead boys are. Dean and Alex Kinney, ages 9 and 8. Both went missing three days ago. They spent the afternoon at a friend's house, but never came home. Their mother, Paige Kinney, tried to report them missing when they didn't come home. PD wouldn't take her report for forty-eight hours, though." Grabbing a slip of paper, Greg wrote the mother's home address down, as he rattled it off to Brass.

"I'll meet you there," was Brass's no nonsense reply.

Grabbing the two photos and the paper with the address, Greg rushed from the A/V lab.

As he was about to pass the Trace lab, Greg caught sight of Nick leaning over the microscope. Hodges was no where in sight, for which he was grateful. Changing direction mid-stride, he went in to let Nick know what was going on.

"Hey, Nick," Greg spoke, as he moved up to the microscope to look into the second eye piece. This particular unit was set up so two people could look at the same specimen. "Is that the fiber Doc found on the second body?"

After glancing up to shoot a quick grin to Greg – which the younger man didn't see because he was too busy looking down the scope – Nick turned his attention back to the fiber he was studying. "Yeah. It's trilobal, so it's from vehicle carpeting. Hopefully this isn't something that's widely used."

"Good luck with that," Greg's voice held no sarcasm, so Nick knew he was sincerely wishing him luck. "I think I may have identified our boys. I'm meeting Brass at the mother's house. Hopefully she'll be able to give us a positive I.D."

Nick straightened from the microscope. A sad but hopeful look settled in his eyes, and Greg's arms ached to pull the older man into a reassuring hug.

Instead, he settled on a hand on Nick's arm, gently squeezing, and a murmured, "See you later, Nicky," before turning and rushing out the door to meet Brass.

Several minutes later, he was pulling one of the department Tahoes in behind Brass's Taurus. The neighborhood was well kept, but it was obvious that the people who lived here struggled for the things they had. The houses were well maintained, no evidence of peeling paint or missing roof tiles. The front yards, while kept mowed, were perhaps not as green as lawns in some of the more extravagant neighborhoods.

The house Greg and Brass stood in front of was cut with the same cookie cutter mold as the rest of the houses on the street, just as well kept as the rest. The front yard was enclosed by a three foot tall chainlink fence, and there was evidence of kids all over the yard. The family must have had more than the two boys, as there were toys for much younger kids, along with the scooters, bikes, and other assorted toys eight and nine year olds would be into.

The two men went in the gate and up to the door, where Brass took a breath and pressed the button for the doorbell. Inside the house, they could hear the chimes ring out their presence.

A few moments later, the door opened, and an attractive blond in her mid to late thirties took one look at the two men on her front step and collapsed in a screaming heap on the floor. Her hysteric cries of, "No! God no! Not my boys! Please, God!" had Greg dropping to his knees beside her. He could only imagine what it must be like, to open the door and find a cop, badge clipped over his suit pocket, and a CSI wearing his vest, and knowing the only reason they would be there.

"Mrs. Kinney. Mrs. Kinney, please," he felt helpless. There was nothing he could say to her that would make it better. The chance that the pictures he had tucked away in his vest were not her two little boys was so slim, he couldn't tell her that maybe it wasn't them.

From deeper in the house, a wail arose – the other little one who's toys decorated the yard.

Brass gave Greg a look, then murmured, "I'll go get the child," before moving deeper into the house.

Greg laid a comforting hand on the mother's back, and suddenly found himself sitting on the floor, the hysteric woman clinging to him and still crying. Her screams had subsided into heavy sobs.

When Brass came back into the entryway a moment later, a little girl of about three clutching his neck tightly, Greg said, "Ma'am, your daughter needs you."

Sobs subsiding into sniffling, the woman finally pulled back from Greg. As she climbed to her feet, Greg caught sight of an embarrassed look on her face. When she took her daughter from Brass's arms, she buried her face in the little girl's hair for a moment, and when she looked up again, she had somewhat composed her features.

"I'm sorry," she finally managed.

Still not sure what to say, wishing so badly he could say it wasn't her boys, but sure in his heart that she would confirm they were, Greg finally said, "Maybe we should sit down."

Nodding jerkily, she lead the two men into the living room, and sank heavily into an arm chair.

"You're here about Dean and Alex, aren't you," it wasn't a question, and the dread in her voice was nearly palpable.

Brass introduced themselves, first, "I'm Captain Jim Brass, and this is CSI Greg Sanders." Then, "Yes, Mrs. Kinney. We think we may have found them. CSI Sanders has pictures we need you to look at, to positively identify them."

The three year-old girl clutched at her mother, peeking out from the crook of her mother's neck to smile shyly at Brass and Greg. Mrs. Kinney buried her face in her daughter's hair one more time, before taking a deep breath and nodding at Greg.

Reaching into his vest pocket, Greg pulled out the photos and set them on the coffee table in front of Mrs. Kinney.

She didn't touch them, just stared at them, one trembling hand going to her mouth. Fresh tears began trailing down her cheeks, but she managed to keep her composure this time, though it appeared to be very tentative.

"Are those your boys?" Greg asked as gently as he could. They had to have confirmation, either way.

Nodding jerkily again, Mrs. Kinney managed to whisper, "What happened to them?"

Brass tried to take control of the situation, "Ma'am, do you know of anyone who might want to hurt your boys?"

Eyes widening with some emotion Greg couldn't quite pin down, Mrs. Kinney raised her voice to a near shout, "What happened to my boys!"

Glancing at Brass with a slight shake of his head, Greg said, "We're not at liberty to say right now, Mrs. Kinney. I'm sorry. We need your help, though, so we can find the person who did this to them." Looking around the living room, at the family pictures hanging from the walls and covering most surfaces, Greg decided to take a different approach.

"Your husband's in the military?" he asked, having noticed a family portrait with everyone in their finest. PFC Kinney dressed in his dress blues – though Greg wondered if they were called dress greens, since they were Army issue, instead of Navy or Air Force. The insignia on the man's uniform told Greg that he was a Private First Class.

"Yeah. He's on another tour in Iraq. He's been deployed so many times, his daughter hardly knows him. He was in the middle of deployment when she was born," she sighed bitterly.

"When was the last time he was home?" Brass asked, his mind moving along the same lines as Greg's, as his own first thought was whether or not PFC Kinney was truly in Iraq or not.

"A little over two months ago. For two weeks." Mrs. Kinney brought a trembling hand to her mouth again, as she stammered, "Oh, God! How am I going to tell him?"

"We're going to have to talk to him. Do you know how we can get in touch with him?" Brass asked, knowing it wouldn't be her who broke the news to PFC Kinney.

"I really don't know. When he's Stateside, he's stationed out of Fort Irwin. The only reason I live in Vegas, instead of on the base in California is that my parents left this house to us," tears brimmed in her eyes again.

"It's okay. We'll contact the commander at Fort Irwin. They'll get us in touch with him. You can be sure he'll be home to help you with arrangements," in his mind, Brass added, _if he isn't under arrest for the murder of your boys._

"You don't think he could have had anything to do with the death of the boys, do you?" she asked, uncertain.

Greg spoke up, this time. "Has he given you any cause to feel he might have done something to Dean and Alex?"

The little girl in Mrs. Kinney's arms had fallen asleep, Greg noticed. Mrs. Kinney's hand traveled up to the little girl's ear, resting there, as though she couldn't bear the child to hear what she was about to say. "I-I don't' know. The last time he was home, he was so... different. Distant. He'd jump at the slightest sounds, he wasn't sleeping well. When it was time for him to go, he seemed almost... relieved, as if he could deal better with being in the middle of that hell over there than he could deal with being here."

As Greg made a checklist of PTSD symptoms in his head, checking off every single one just from what Mrs. Kinney described, he said, "If he hasn't been Stateside for two months, then there's no way he could have been responsible. We'll contact Fort Irwin, find out your husband's location for the last few days, and go from there."

Tears brimmed in her eyes again, several spilling over down her cheeks, but she didn't speak.

Rising from the couch, Brass said, "I'm sorry for your loss. We'll be in contact if we have any further questions."

Feeling as though there was more to be said, Greg vowed, "We'll find the person responsible, ma'am! The county's best CSIs are on the case!" He wasn't bragging, just stating a simple truth.

Outside, Brass promised Greg he'd run down the location of the husband, then they parted ways.

Back at the lab, after briefing Nick and Grissom about the interview of Mrs. Kinney, and having nothing better to do, Greg began processing another of the mattresses.

Nearly six hours later, Nick found him in the garage just finishing up the second side of the mattress he'd been working on.

"Hey!" Nick greeted, running a hand through his hair tiredly, as he watched Greg seal the plastic back around the third mattress.

"Hey, yourself!" Greg replied just as tiredly, as Nick moved to help him return the mattress to the evidence locker.

"You ready to go home? Brass called earlier and said he's still trying to run down PFC Kinney's location, but it would probably be another day before we have anything concrete on him." Greg thought Nick's eyes didn't look quite so haunted. He figured that fact that they case was starting to move along, if slowly, was lifting Nick's spirits. He knew Nick had spent the majority of the night trying to run down a make and model of vehicle for the fiber Doc Robbins had found. He'd made very little headway.

Letting out an exhausted sigh, Greg said, "Home sounds good. Food and bed, in that order, sounds even better."

Nick headed out to the parking garage, while Greg stopped by Trace and DNA to drop off the samples he'd taken from the third mattress.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

When they finally got home, both men were too tired from too little sleep over the last couple of days to do anything but eat hastily heated microwave dinners and crawl into bed.

A warm wet tongue laving over his right nipple brought Greg to wakefulness several hours later. By the light seeping in around the blackout curtains, Greg guessed it was late afternoon to early evening.

His hands moved to Nick's head of their own accord, tangling in the older man's hair, as he let out a low moan. "Oh, God! Nicky!" he forced the words out of his suddenly breathless lips, his back arching into Nick's touch.

Now Nick's mouth was latched onto his nipple, sucking it to a hard nub, as his hands wandered down to the tented material of Greg's sweat pants.

Hands poised, Nick pulled up from Greg's nipple, looking up at him with a look of such desire and need. "I want to taste you, Greg! Can I taste you?"

Pushing his head back into his pillow, as his back involuntarily arched at the thought of Nick's mouth sucking his cock, Greg managed a strangled, "Fuck! Yes, Nicky!"

Pulling Greg's sweats down to mid-thigh, Nick admired Greg's cock for a moment, and Greg prayed the older man wasn't having second thoughts. Greg was harder than he thought he'd ever been, and he could feel pre-cum dripping onto his lower stomach, where his cock bobbed gently above it. He would control himself this time, though. He wanted to last, wanted Nick's mouth on him as long as possible.

Nick leaned in toward Greg, and Greg let out a shuddery, "Fuck!" when the tip of Nick's tongue touched him for the first time, dipping into his slit, collecting all of the precious fluid there. Then Nick was tracing the hood with his tongue, and his hand was touching him, too. The way Nick's fingers were smoothing down his length, only to lift up and start over again, it almost felt like Nick was petting him. It was erotic as hell, and Greg was amazed that he was able to last through it.

A moan escaped Greg, as Nick's tongue flattened out, to sweep across the younger man's cock head. Greg could have sworn he could feel every individual taste bud from Nick's tongue, he was so sensitive.

Nick hadn't brought Greg's cock past his lips yet, was still trailing his tongue over super heated silk sheathed steel, his fingers still petting, but Greg wasn't sure how much longer he'd last. The way Nick was touching him was testing his self-control in ways it had never been tested before.

When Nick finally sucked Greg's cock head into his mouth, Greg let out a little gasp of ecstacy. Nick gave a few forceful sucks, then raked his teeth gently across his lover's cock head, eliciting a shouted, "Fuck! Oh, God! Nicky!" from the younger man.

Greg could feel his balls drawing up, tightening, preparing for his impending release, could feel the heat building in his spine. "N-not going to l-last much l-longer," he managed to stammer out, as Nick continued to curl his tongue over the tip of Greg's cock, fingers still petting in long strokes down the younger man's cock.

Then Nick moved his hand, cupping Greg's balls, as he took Greg's cock farther into his mouth, hollowing out his cheeks as he sucked as hard as he could.

As he finally let go, his whole body tightened, as his semen shot into the back of Nick's throat. He could feel the creamy substance shooting from him in thick streams, could feel Nick's mouth convulse around him, as the older man swallowed.

Nick gave the tip of Greg's cock one more laving with his tongue, before pulling the younger man's sweats back up into place.

Greg felt Nick crawl back up his body. Opened his mouth invitingly, when Nick pressed their lips together. Their combined taste was heady, and only made Greg crave the older man even more.

Hesitantly, not wanting to cause Nick to tense and pull away again, Greg rested his hands against Nick's bare chest. "Can I taste you, Nick?" He watched Nick's eyes as best he could in the gloom, saw the uncertainty there. Nonetheless, Nick nodded at him.

Nick rolled to his back, his eyes never leaving Greg's.

"I won't hurt you, Nicky! I swear!" Greg murmured, hooking his fingers into the waistband of Nick's tented athletic shorts.

"I know," Nick whispered huskily back, as Greg gently pulled the gray cotton shorts down Nick's thighs, then fully off of his legs.

"Gorgeous!" Greg moaned, licking suddenly dry lips, when Nick's cock was exposed to him.

Nick blushed, but didn't try to cover himself back up, or pull away.

Deciding to start slow, Greg trailed his index finger from the base of Nick's cock up to the head, sweeping it over the slit to gather the drops of pre-cum that had been accumulating there. He kept his eyes on Nick's to assure himself that the older man was okay with what he was doing thus far.

Bringing his finger to his mouth, he licked it clean, watching as Nick licked his own lips in response. "You taste so good, Nick!" Greg spoke quietly, as he positioned himself on his knees between Nick's legs. Keeping his eyes on Nick, he followed the path his finger had taken a moment ago with his tongue. His reward was the way Nick's cock jumped, straining towards his mouth, and the way Nick's eyes drifted closed in pleasure.

"More!" escaped Nick's mouth on a strangled moan, followed by, "Fuck! Yes!" as Greg's tongue licked up Nick's length again. Greg saw that Nick's hands were fisted in the sheets, clutched tightly enough to leave his knuckles white.

Circling Nick's cock head with his tongue, Greg took Nick's shaft in his hand, giving the older man dual stimulation that had him thrusting blindly up into Greg's hand and mouth.

"Easy," Greg murmured, pressing Nick's hips down with an arm across them.

Nick tensed slightly at the weight of Greg's arm across his hips, so Greg began to pull back. Fingers tangling in his hair, Nick almost roughly pulled him back, with a husky, "Don't you dare stop now!"

Looking up again, Greg found himself lost in Nick's deep brown desire filled gaze. There was a hint of raw fear, but it quickly retreated, and Nick reassured him, "I'm okay. Please!"

Satisfied that Nick was truly okay, Greg brought his mouth back to Nick's cock, teasing the shaft with his tongue and lips. Kissing his way up the pulsing vein to the head, dipping his tongue into the leaking slit.

As he finally engulfed Nick's cock with his mouth, Greg reached up and began to tease Nick's right nipple, rubbing the pad of his thumb over it gently. A gasp from the older man, followed almost immediately by a sigh, spoke of Nick's happiness at the pleasure Greg was visiting upon him.

Taking Nick's length farther into his mouth, Greg stroked the underside of Nick's cock with his tongue.

"Greg! Oh, God!" the words left Nick's mouth in such a way that they almost blended into one.

Nick's hips bucked up again, as Greg pulled off of him with a small pop. Leaning farther down, Greg nuzzled his nose against Nick's balls and shaft, breathing Nick's musky sex scent deeply into his lungs.

After licking over Nick's tightening ball sack, Greg moved his mouth back to Nick's cock, intent on catching the older man's impending release. His hand fondled Nick's balls, feeling them pull more tightly to Nick's body the closer he got to the edge.

Running his tongue around the sensitive hood of Nick's cock once more caused Nick to fall over the edge of his orgasm.

The powerful spurts sent semen shooting to the back of Greg's throat, nearly causing him to gag, but he fought the reflex, and managed to swallow every last drop. When Nick was at last spent, Greg released his softening cock, and scooted up to Nick's side.

Meeting the older man's gaze in the gloom, Greg could see the sated look in his lover's eyes. Another sigh escaped Nick's lips, before he leaned towards Greg to catch the younger man's mouth in a passionate kiss that quickly deepened, as Nick got to taste himself in Greg's mouth for the first time.

Pulling back a moment later, Nick shyly murmured, "Did you like the way I taste?"

"Even better than I ever imagined it, Nicky," Greg replied quietly, propping himself up on an elbow to gaze down at Nick. Catching a glance at the clock, he groaned. "Damn! We have to be at the lab in a couple of hours. We have enough time for showers and breakfast."

Reaching up to trail a finger down Greg's cheek, Nick smiled happily. It made Greg's breath hitch to know that he was the reason for that smile.

"Why don't you go shower, and I'll fix us each an omelet." As he spoke, Nick rubbed his thumb over Greg's lips, marveling at how soft they were.

Capturing Nick's thumb with his lips, Greg sucked it into his mouth, drawing a moan out of the other man. Greg could feel his cock beginning to harden again, regretted that he'd pulled Nick's thumb into his mouth only because they didn't have time for any further fun.

From the bedside table, both of their phones nearly simultaneously signaled new text messages.

Flopping to his back with a groan, Greg reached for his cell, as he felt Nick reaching for his own. Flipping his phone open, Greg read the rather lengthy text. "Gris assigned me to help out. Have a pretty significant development from Wendy. Come in as soon as you can. Cath." While a few of the words were abbreviated, most were completely spelled out, and Greg had to laugh.

Nick gave him a curious look, as he closed his phone after reading the message.

"You'd think having a teenage daughter would mean Catherine would know all of the texting lingo. Apparently not. I think that's the longest text I've ever read."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Look, Catherine said I was to tell you to go talk to her," Wendy said, shouldering past Greg to grab a new slide to spread a sample on.

When the two men didn't move, she looked up at them with a raised brow.

"Any idea where she is?" Nick asked.

Greg watched Wendy's eyes trail over the love bite still clearly visible on his neck. Her gaze then settled on Nick, and Greg saw a knowing smirk settle on her face, as a muscle in Nick's neck twitched.

With a mock put-upon sigh, Wendy finally replied, "I'm not her keeper, Nick. Did you try her office? If she's not there, I'd call her cell."

As the two men turned to go, Wendy said, "I wondered how long it would take the two of you to get together."

They both stopped and turned back again, Greg letting a grin play across his features, but staying quiet.

"How'd you know?" Nick asked. Greg noted Nick's voice was filled with curiosity, no nervousness or unease.

Laughing softly, Wendy said, "I'm a chemist. If it's one thing I know, it's chemistry. Just surprised Eienstein here took so long to put the chemical compounds together for himself."

Laughing nervously, Greg said, "Yeah, well, even Eienstein had his blind spots." Looking from Wendy to Nick, Greg said, "We better get going, Nicky. Catherine's got to be here somewhere."

Several minutes later, they found Catherine in one of the layout rooms, looking over several crime scene photographs she had pinned to the bulletin board on the wall.

At first, Greg just dismissed them as being Dean and Alex Kinney, but as he got closer, he noticed the boys in the pictures weren't the two from their current case. "What's going on, Catherine? Have more bodies been found?" Looking closely at the pictures, Greg was able to identify four different boys, all posed the same way as the Kinney boys.

Catherine turned from her examination, her strawberry blond hair swinging around her face and shoulders as she moved. She looked from Nick to Greg, her eyes widening in surprise when she saw the mark on Greg's neck, but she didn't say anything about it. Instead, she said, "Greg, I need to talk to Nick alone for a minute. Can you wait in the hall?"

Glancing at Nick, Greg nodded, "Sure. Come get me when you're done," and moved toward the door.

Nick's hand on his arm stopped him. "Anything you need to say to me, Cath, you can say with Greg here."

Greg watched Catherine's eyes trail down to where Nick's hand still rested on his arm, as she said, "It has to do with what you told me a few years ago, Nicky."

"He already knows about it. All of it." Nick sighed, and went on, "I guess it's time you know the whole story, too."

Murmuring, "I'll close the door," Greg carefully pulled his arm free of Nick's grasp and walked back to the door.

Once he was by Nick's side again, he took Nick's hand in his own, his gaze meeting Catherine's challengingly.

"Oh-kay," she dragged the word out some, as she worked her brain around the evidence being presented to her. "Is this a new development, or something that's been going on a while?"

"It's still new," Greg responded.

"But it's something we've both wanted for a long time," Nick added.

Shaking her head in apparent disappointment at herself for not noticing what should have been obvious to a CSI of her caliber, she just said, "Huh!" After a moment's silence, she finally said, "You said Greg knew the whole story, and it was time I did to?"

Taking Catherine's lack of further comment about their relationship as a sign that the veteran CSI wasn't bothered by two of her closest male friends being involved in a romantic relationship, Nick said, "Everything I told you was the truth, except the babysitter's gender. His name was Todd, he was sixteen and lived down the street from us." He looked down at his feet, and Greg was sure Nick was worried that Catherine would be upset that he hadn't told her the whole truth to begin with.

"Nicky, look at me, please," Catherine said, taking a small step closer to the two men. When Nick looked up at her, she smiled reassuringly. "I'm not mad at you. I understand you had your reasons for telling me what you did. I know how cases with kids affect you, and I just wanted to make sure you knew I'm here if you need to talk." Glancing down at Nick and Greg's intertwined hands again, she said, "But it looks like you've got all the support you need."

Greg felt Nick squeeze his hand, and returned the older man's smile, as Nick said a soft, "Thanks, Cath."

Getting back to business, Greg gave Catherine a serious look, "Now, what's this significant development from Wendy?" While he waited for Catherine's answer, he released Nick's hand and went to open the door back up.

"Wendy finished running the DNA from the SAE kits. The only hits in CODIS were to four cases in Texas in the early nineties. Four boys about the same ages as Dean and Alex, but all unrelated. Other than that, the MO was exactly the same." Catherine pointed out the pictures she had been studying when they first came in.

"So we've got a serial killer on our hands who can just up and stop for ten years at a time?" Greg asked, as he began to study the pictures. All four boys were positioned exactly the same way as Dean and Alex had been. Their surroundings were similar, as well, either vacant houses, or houses undergoing renovations.

"It could be that he didn't kill during that time because he was in prison," Nick said, moving in to study the photos himself.

"It's also possible he was playing with other MO's. He might have started wearing a condom, only to realize that since his DNA wasn't in the system, he didn't have to worry about it," Catherine added. "Grissom's searching NCIC right now, looking for any other cases with similarities."

"What about the evidence in these cases? Is there any way to get a look at it?" Greg asked. His gaze strayed towards Nick, when the older man's phone rang.

As he listened to Catherine explain, "They're shipping everything they have to us as we speak," Greg watched Nick flip his phone open and answer with his usual, "Stokes."

Catherine went on to say, "Case notes for all four cases have already been faxed to us." She indicated four file folders on the lighted table that took up the middle of the room. Four brown file folders, with the seal of the Las Vegas Crime Lab on the front, were neatly lined up in a row on the table.

Looking quickly at the dates written on the tabs to ensure they had indeed been laid out on the table from oldest to most recent, Greg picked up the folder for the oldest case. As he listened to Nick's end of the conversation with half of his brain, he began to skim through the case file with the other half of his brain. He knew he'd have to go back over them in more detail, once he could devote his undivided attention to them, but he wanted to hear what Nick had to say on the phone.

It turned out to be rather brief, as Nick said, "Hey, Brass. We're down in Layout Two." A pause, as Nick listened to whatever Brass responded, then, "Okay, see you in a few."

Looking up from the case file in his hands, Greg said, "He have something?"

Shrugging, Nick said, "He said we'll probably be able to scratch a suspect off our list, but he'd explain fully when he gets here. I'm guessing the father's location has been verified, though." After clipping his phone back onto his belt, Nick scooted one of the file folders over so he could look at it. He leaned over the table on his forearms, quickly becoming absorbed in the case file.

Greg, on the other hand, didn't realize he'd been staring at Nick's ass until Catherine's elbow to his ribs and whispered, "Get your mind out of the gutter, Greg!" brought him abruptly back to himself.

Catherine scooped up a folder of her own, and moved to the other side of the table, where she became absorbed in its study. Once Catherine had moved away, Nick glanced up at Greg, a small mischievous smile on his face.

Feeling blood rushing to his groin, Greg clamped down on the inside of his cheek, and felt the sting of tears. Before Nick could turn back to his file, Greg mouthed, "Hamburger, you fucking tease!"

Mouthing back, "Tease? Me? Nah!" with a mock innocent look, Nick turned back to the file in front of him.

With a frustrated sigh that he hoped Catherine hadn't heard, Greg turned back to his own file. Only to be interrupted in its perusal again when Brass walked in.

He only waited long enough for everyone to set their case files aside, before he bruskly said, "The father's in the clear. He was in Iraq with the rest of his squad. He's being flown back Stateside right now. It sounds like he may be staying. His commanding officer has noted his concerns that PFC Kinney has reached his breaking point."

"Well, that's the one and only suspect taken off of our suspect list," Greg sighed dejectedly.

"We may have a lead towards another, though," Brass said, pulling his notebook from his pocket. "When I called Mrs. Kinney to let her know her husband was in the clear and would be home soon, I asked her if she'd noticed any strangers hanging around the neighborhood, or any strange cars. Now, while that street is a through street, it's not a heavily traveled road. She mentioned a dark colored older model Toyota Corolla cruising through the neighborhood several times in the last two weeks. The last time being the day the boys disappeared. Mrs. Kinney didn't get a plate number, as she really didn't think much of it at the time. She also couldn't remember an exact color. She thought it might be black or a very dark green, maybe even dark blue."

"Ah, but maybe a neighbor did notice at least a partial plate number," Greg piped up. "We should canvas the neighborhood."

"That was my thought exactly," Brass replied, "Who's with me?"

"We'll all go," Catherine replied. "We can get done faster, with each of us working our way down one direction of the street."

It was eleven o'clock in the evening, which meant that most of the homeowners in the area would be home, though they probably wouldn't be very pleased at having someone knocking on the door at that time of night. It still took them a good two hours to work their way down the street. Nick took the side of the street to the left of the Kinney's home. Greg took the side to the right. Catherine went the same direction as Nick but on the opposite side of the road, and Brass went down the same direction as Greg on the opposite side of the road.

Through their interviews of the neighbors, they were able to pin down that the Toyota Corolla was dark green in color, but no one could remember the licence plate number, though everyone seemed to be in agreement that the car had Nevada plates, and a few people thought the plates might have started with a one or an I.

When they got back to the lab, Greg volunteered to go see what he could find out about Toyota Corollas with licence plate numbers starting with one or I.

"I'm going to go find out if Hodges has matched that fiber to a make and model for me yet," Nick said, as he headed towards the Trace lab.

"I'll go see what Grissom's found in NCIC," Catherine said, turning on her heel to go to Grissom's office.

Greg found himself suddenly alone in the hallway. Shrugging his shoulders, he headed off to the A/V lab.

Archie, the lab's computer specialist, was there, working on something relating to another case. He looked up, as Greg walked in, said a pleasant, "Hey, Greg!" then turned back to what he was doing.

Settling in at an empty terminal, Greg logged in and brought up the search engine for DMVs records. Within a few minutes, he had a list of about one hundred dark green Toyota Corollas in Las Vegas with licence plates starting with either a one or an I. Sighing, he went ahead and printed out the list, figuring they could always use it to narrow their search, if they could come up with more information about the car.

Wandering back towards Layout Two, Greg decided he'd go ahead and go through the case files from the four boys in Texas. He'd just pinned the DMV list up on the bulletin board when his cell rang.

Pulling it from its belt clip, he noted Nick's cell number in the display. Answering with a smile on his face, Greg said, "Hey, Nicky! You got something on that fiber?"

He felt the blood drain from his face when Nick said, "Another little boy's body's been found. Cath and I are on our way to the scene. I left my keys in my locker, so you can drive yourself home later. I'll catch a cab." Nick's voice was low and clipped, signaling to Greg that the older man was stressed by the discovery of another dead child.

"Damn!" Greg shouted. He felt like hurtling something at the wall, but there wasn't anything handy to throw. Calming quickly, as he knew his own anger wouldn't help Nick's mood, he said, "You going to be okay?"

"I don't have much choice, G." A sigh, then, "Yeah, I'll be okay. I'll see you later at home."

It was already five hours into shift. Greg just hoped the scene wouldn't require a full double from Nick, just a few hours of overtime.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

To Greg, it seemed a minor miracle that he got off shift on time. As expected, though, Nick was still out at the crime scene, collecting evidence with Catherine. Greg wished he were at the scene with Nick, just to be there for the older man, but was glad Catherine was there with him.

Using Nick's locker combination – pretty much everybody on graveyard shift knew each other's combinations – Greg opened the other man's locker and retrieved his keys from the top shelf. After collecting his own keys from his locker, Greg headed out to the parking garage and the lonely drive home.

He couldn't believe how quickly he'd gotten used to Nick's presence on the drive to and from work. Hell, he couldn't believe how quickly he'd gotten used to Nick's presence in his home, in his life!

The drive home seemed to take twice as long, even though there was very little traffic at six thirty a.m. on a Saturday morning. It was just the fact that he was making the trip alone that made it seem so much longer, Greg supposed.

At home, he sent Nick a quick text telling the older man that he was going to fix a homemade pizza, and to call when he was on his way, so Greg could put it in the oven.

He took care of a few domestic chores around the apartment, taking out the trash and starting a load of laundry, before he started working on the pizza. Nick's reply to Greg's text came about twenty minutes later, just a quick, "Snds gd," which Greg interpreted to mean, "Sounds good."

After some careful thought, Greg went to his bedroom and pulled one of his toys out. He thought that perhaps if Nick watched him pleasure himself, the older man might become more comfortable with the thought of penetrating his lover's body. He set the life-like dildo on the bedside table, next to a bottle of lube, and gave a shiver of anticipation. He also brought a folding chair in from the closet of the guest room and set it up near the bed, where Nick would have a good vantage point.

Getting more comfortable, Greg stripped out of the clothes he'd worn to work that night, and slipped into a pair of loose sweat pants. He then decided he'd pass the time until Nick got home by playing a video game.

It was almost two hours later that the phone rang. Snatching it up, Greg was relieved to see Nick's name in the display window. Opening his phone with a smile of pleasure, Greg said, "You on your way home?"

A weary sigh carried through the speaker to Greg's ear, as Nick said, "Yeah. Finally. Just got in the cab. I'm looking forward to that pizza, and holding you."

A warm flush crept up Greg's bare chest to his neck. "I'm going to go put the pizza in the oven. I'll see you soon," he murmured, followed by a quiet, "I love you."

"Love you, too!" Nick replied.

Twenty minutes later, Greg was running the pizza cutter through the pizza, when he heard Nick's key in the door. Grabbing plates, Greg put two pieces on each plate and took them to the table, then returned to grab a couple of beers from the fridge.

As Greg turned from the fridge, Nick stepped into the kitchen, drawing in a deep breath. "Mmm... That smells good! But you look even better," Nick's eyes traveled up and down Greg's body, making the younger man flush again.

Smiling widely, Greg said, "Hold that thought, or the pizza's going to get cold." He stepped up to Nick, handing the other man one of the beers, and leaned in just long enough to set a light kiss on Nick's lips. He was happy to note that while Nick looked exhausted, he didn't seem to be in as much emotional pain as he had been when the first boy had been discovered.

Nick took his beer and went to the table, where he sat and waited for Greg to take his own seat. Beaming a smile at the younger man, Nick picked up one of his pizza slices and took a bite.

After swallowing a bite of his own pizza, Greg said quietly, "You don't seem as stressed."

"It was still a hard scene to process." Nick paused for a moment, trying to order his thoughts. "I guess knowing I would be coming home to you made it a little easier to bear. In the past, I've always had to go home to an empty house." Giving Greg a huge smile, Nick said, "But not any more."

"Tell me?" Greg knew Nick would understand his question, without having to elaborate.

"It was like the others. Body in the same position. Everything." Nick looked over at Greg, the smile on his face morphing into a different kind of smile. This was the smile Nick had when a suspect screwed up and gave away a vital piece of information, or when the final piece of evidence fell into place to complete the puzzle. "He screwed up, G. He dumped this one almost as soon as he killed him, or our witness found the boy much earlier than the killer expected him to be found. He'd only been dead a little over an hour. Catherine and I tented and fumed him, right there. Got a full hand print off that little boy's back. Catherine was running it through AFIS, when I left."

"Hopefully his prints are in the system." Greg knew that the likely hood of that was slim, since their perp's DNA wasn't in CODIS, but he didn't want to ruin Nick's good mood. And there were some instances were a person's prints were in the system, even when their DNA wasn't.

A few minutes later, licking grease and pizza sauce off of his fingers, Greg sat back, and patted his stomach. "Damn, that was good! If I do say so myself."

Nick was smiling at him, as he finished the last few bites of his own pizza.

"What? Do I have flour on my nose, or something?" He crossed his eyes, trying to see the tip of his nose.

Shaking his head, as he finished chewing and swallowed the last mouthful of pizza, Nick leaned forward and kissed the side of Greg's mouth. Pulling back a moment later, licking his lips, he said, "You had some pizza sauce on the corner of your mouth."

"You're such a tease! You know that, right?" Greg murmured, as he felt the blood rush to his groin. He let his eyes trail down to where his sweat pants were beginning to tent over his hardening cock, then looked back up at Nick, whose eyes had also strayed to the front of Greg's sweat pants.

"You don't seem to mind," Nick replied, licking his lips again.

Watching Nick's face, Greg brought one hand to his crotch, trailing a fingertip across the tip of his cock through the cotton covering it. His cock jumped under his touch, and he watched Nick lick his lips for the third time. "Do you like to watch, Nicky?" he asked huskily, trailing his fingertip down the length of his cock, then back up to the tip. Nick's eyes never left Greg's finger.

Greg watched Nick shifting in his seat, his imagination conjuring up the image of Nick's cock straining against the confines of his jeans. The older man didn't say anything, but the look on his face told Greg all he needed to know.

"Would you like to watch me touch myself? Pleasure myself?" his voice had deepened to the point that he almost didn't recognize it.

Nick's wide eyes finally met Greg's, and he nodded jerkily.

Jumping up, Greg took Nick's hand and pulled the older man after him – half drunk beers and empty plates left forgotten on the table.

In the bedroom, Greg pushed Nick down into the folding chair, then hastily pulled off his sweat pants and scrambled up onto the bed. Grabbing the items from the bedside table, Greg set them within easy reach on the bed.

Looking over at Nick, he found the older man's eyes locked on the dildo, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

"Nicky?" Greg asked quietly, afraid the older man was on the verge of a panic attack.

Nick's eyes snapped from the dildo to Greg, and he stammered, "Y-you're going to... I-I mean, my God, that's as big as me! And you're going to..."

Locking gazes with Nick, Greg said, "Don't worry, Nicky. I've done this before. It doesn't hurt, as long as I've properly prepped myself. In fact, it's the complete opposite." Seeing that Nick looked on the verge of bolting, Greg grabbed the lube and slicked up his fingers. "Watch me, Nicky, please!"

Now Nick seemed frozen in place, as Greg brought his knees up nearly to his chest, exposing his entrance. Moving his arm between his legs, he put one finger against his puckered opening, teasing at it with the lubed digit, but not pushing it inside yet. At that contact alone, his cock jumped.

Nick had settled back in the chair, his gaze alternating between Greg's face – a look of intense pleasure written across it – and Greg's ass, where his finger was now slowly breaching the outer ring of muscle.

As Greg pushed his finger farther in, he let out a deep sigh. He thrust his finger in and out several times, before adding a second finger. He scissored them, stretching himself for the much larger intrusion to come, but avoided his prostate for the time being. He knew that once he started hitting that, he wouldn't last long, and he wanted the full feeling the dildo would give him, before he fell over the edge of pleasure.

After scissoring his two fingers for several minutes, he added a third finger, stretching himself even more. When he was satisfied that he was prepared, Greg brought his feet down flat on the bed, and picked the dildo and the bottle of lube up. As he lubed up the dildo, he said, "When I use this, I imagine it's you, Nicky."

Placing the dildo at his entrance, he began to slowly push it in, taking his time to allow his body to adjust to the intrusion. When the dildo was all the way in, he sighed, and turned his head to look at Nick again.

Nick – eyes glazed with desire – was palming himself through his jeans. As Greg watched, the older man fumbled at his fly, freeing his cock from its confines.

"That's it Nicky, wrap your hand around your cock and imagine that's my tight channel gripping you, stroking you." As he spoke, Greg wrapped his thumb and index finger tightly around the base of his own cock, determined to drag out his pleasure as long as possible. With his other hand, he began to thrust the dildo in and out of his body, unconsciously matching the pace Nick was setting with his hand on his own cock.

"Doesn't that feel good, Nicky? You feel so good, buried inside of me!" Then he changed the angle of the dildo's thrusts, causing it to hit his bundle of nerves, "Oh, God, Nicky! Right there! That's the spot!" he nearly shouted out.

Nick's husky, "You're so hot, and tight, Greg!" caused Greg's hips to buck off the bed, and unable to wait any longer, he began to stroke his cock with the hand that had been previously keeping his release at bay.

With a low, husky, "Nicky!" Greg fell over the edge into ecstacy, his semen shooting across his stomach and chest.

As he rode out his high, Greg watched Nick continuing to stroke himself, and said, "Feel me constricting around you, Nicky. My channel tightening around your cock with my release."

And that seemed to be all it took for Nick to fall over the edge, as well, ropes of cum shooting out onto the hem of his shirt.

Pulling the dildo gently from his ass, Greg let it fall to the bed beside him, as he slowly brought his breathing back to normal.

Rolling to his side, propping his head up with one hand, Greg peered over at Nick. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

Rising on unsteady feet, Nick staggered the few steps to the bed, where he climbed up to lay next to Greg. After leaning in to steal a quick kiss, he said, "I'll admit, I wasn't too sure of it at first, but... Wow!"

Leaning his forehead against Nick's, Greg murmured, "I wouldn't be averse to watching, if you ever wanted to try the dildo."

A small, nervous chuckle escaped Nick as he said, "I don't know. We'll see."

"That's all I can ask for," Greg said, kissing Nick on the nose. "Let's clean up and go watch a movie in the living room, before we go to bed."

Smiling at the abrupt change in topic, Nick drawled, "Sure."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

A warm feeling of contentment rushed through Greg, as he sat in the break room, nursing a hot cup of Blue Hawaiian coffee. The knowledge that Nick had become an active participant in Greg's little performance the night before gave Greg the satisfaction of knowing the other man would eventually be able to make love to him. Not that Greg had ever doubted it. He'd seen Nick do too many things he'd set his mind to, over the years.

Little did he know – as he sat beaming a smile across the table at Nick, where the older man sat nursing his own cup of coffee – something was coming that might drive Nick back to square one.

It was just minutes to ten, and while they had plenty to do, they had both booked enough overtime that if they logged too much more, they'd have the sheriff down on their heads.

"You're going to crack your face open, if you keep grinning like that, G," Nick said quietly, giving Greg a smaller, if no less blinding smile.

Not quite sure how to express himself, not sure he could fully express himself in their current surroundings, Greg simply replied, "I think I'm happier than I have any right to be."

Nick seemed to pick up on what Greg meant, because he simply stated, "'Rick would want us to go on with our lives, Greg. Not dwell on his loss. He'd want us to be happy."

Blinking back sudden tears, Greg said, "I know. I just... I keep expecting him to walk through the door, a witty remark on his tongue. You know?"

Reaching across the table, Nick placed his hand over Greg's, squeezing it reassuringly. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I keep thinking he'll walk in at any moment, too."

As Catherine walked in, Nick gave Greg's hand one last squeeze, before pulling slowly back to wrap both hands around the warmth of his coffee cup again.

"Hey, guys. Everything okay?" Catherine asked, as she noted Greg's red rimmed eyes.

Rubbing his fingers over his eyes, Greg said, "Yeah. Just talking about 'Rick."

Placing a hand on Greg's shoulder, she squeezed gently. "It's okay to miss him, Greg. We all do."

Grissom – moving at a high rate of speed down the hallway – skidded into the break room, just then. He slowed his forward momentum with a hand on the doorjamb. A piece of paper was waving about in his other hand. "What're you guys sitting around here for? Brass has a witness to the third body dump. The witness gave us a partial plate number, and a composite sketch of the driver!"

"Well, let's see it," Nick said, gesturing at the paper in Grissom's hand, sure it was the composite sketch.

Grissom held it up, and the other three CSIs peered at it intently, as Grissom said, "Brass's faxed it to every newspaper agency and television station in the county."

"He doesn't have to do that. I can I.D. him," Nick's soft voice caused Greg's head to snap around towards him. The older man's face had gone deathly white, and his hands were clenched on his coffee mug so tightly, Greg was afraid he'd break it and hurt himself.

Grissom gave Nick a curious look, but Nick didn't notice, as his eyes were still locked on the sketch.

Reaching across the table, as Nick had done earlier, Greg touched the back of Nick's hand. Nick jerked his hands back so fast that his coffee cup went flying. It hit the floor and shattered, sending coffee and ceramic flying in all directions.

Finally tearing his gaze away from the sketch, Nick turned his panic filled gaze on Greg. "I-I have to get some air. G, tell him, please," Nick said, before standing up so fast his chair fell over, and bolting out the door.

Shooting a pleading look to Catherine, Greg only waited long enough for her to say, "I'll tell him," then rushed out the door after Nick.

There were very few places one could actually get out of the lab to get air, so Greg headed for the most likely place. He found Nick leaning up against the side of the building that faced the open lot they used for experiments too big or dangerous to be conducted inside the building.

The older man had his arms wrapped tightly around himself, only partially against the night chill. He was resting his head against the building, as he pulled in deep calming breaths.

"It's him, isn't it?" Greg didn't have to say who he meant. Nick knew.

Nick's head jerked away from the wall. The look he directed at Greg made him think of the little boy Nick had once been, and the horrific act that had been committed against him.

Greg reached out for Nick, wanting to draw the older man into his loving embrace, reassure him that everything would be okay.

"Don't- don't touch me!" Nick spoke hoarsely, turning away.

Fisting his hands, Greg shoved them into the pockets of the jacket he wore. "Okay, Nicky. I won't leave you out here alone, though."

Nick suddenly spun back around to face Greg, a wild look in his eyes. "Greg!" the strangled sound escaping Nick's throat was nearly unrecognizable to Greg. But the sounds escaping Nick's body, as he collapsed against Greg, were undeniably sobs. "I... I... was... his... first!" Nick managed to get out, between wracking sobs.

Finally regaining his composure, Nick pulled back to meet Greg's eyes. "Staring at that sketch, I... I got this... flash of memory. I must have repressed it, all those years ago. God! I knew there was something about those boys that seemed familiar. I just couldn't place it. Maybe if I'd remembered sooner... He... Greg, when he was done... he made me pose... the same pose he left those boys in. He... he took pictures of me, Greg."

A new round of sobs tried to overtake Nick's body again. Greg seemed to know what was coming. Taking Nick's face in his hands, he forced Nick to meet his gaze. "This is _not_ your fault! Don't you dare start blaming yourself! If it hadn't been you, it would have been some other unlucky little boy. You survived so you can get this monster off the street!"

Pulling Nick back into his embrace, Greg felt the older man bury his face in his neck, and cling to him. They stood like that for several minutes, before Greg murmured softly, "I had Catherine tell him, Nicky, but they're going to need a last name."

"I know," Nick said softly, placing a soft kiss to Greg's neck, before finally straightening. "I'll be pulled from the case, too."

Meeting Nick's gaze, Greg nodded, "I don't think that'll be such a bad thing, though, Nicky."

Anger flashed briefly through Nick's eyes, but it quickly faded, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Taking Nick's hand, Greg tugged him gently towards the door. "Come on. Let's go give Grissom Todd's last name, so they can catch him!"

When they got back to the break room, they found Grissom sitting in stunned silence. He looked up when they walked in. Started, "Nick," only to be cut off.

"His last name's Daniels," Nick said softly. He met Grissom's gaze, not sure what he expected to see there, maybe pity, or disappointment. The only emotion in Grissom's gaze was heartfelt concern, though.

"Okay, Nicky. I'll get that to Brass. We'll track him down!" Grissom broke eye contact for a moment, glancing down at the table, then back up at Nick again. "You know I have to take you off the case," it wasn't a question, and they both knew it.

Nick nodded anyway, spoke softly, "Yeah. I guessed as much."

Grissom raised a brow, as though this weren't the reaction he'd been expecting. He cut his eyes over to Greg, who just shrugged.

"Greg, take him home. I'll assign you both to a new case tomorrow."

At first, Greg wanted to protest. He wanted to see the case through. Help put the son-of-a-bitch who'd hurt Nick and killed all those boys away. But it dawned on him that if the defense got wind of his relationship with Nick, they'd have a field day with it, possibly use it to get a conviction overturned. Nodding in resignation at Grissom, Greg turned towards Nick.

Before turning to head to the parking garage, Nick met Grissom's gaze again. "Let me know when you catch him. I want to see him."

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Nick." When Nick looked about to protest, Grissom went on, "I won't let you see him alone, and not until we're done questioning him."

A small, tight smile of thanks crossed his face, before he finally turned and preceded Greg from the break room.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Never in his life had Greg ever thought he'd see the usually sedate Texan exhibiting any of the nervous energy he himself was known for. But here they were, back at Greg's apartment, and Nick was pacing like a caged tiger. Greg – feeling helpless to do anything for the older man – decided to just let him be, hoping that if Nick wanted to talk, he'd come to Greg on his own.

Unsure of what to do, Greg grabbed his book from the side table and curled up on the couch to read, or at least give the appearance of reading.

He must not have been doing a very good job, because after nearly half an hour of this, Nick stopped, turned towards him, and softly said, "You're watching me."

Giving up pretenses, Greg set his book aside, meeting Nick's gaze. Raising one shoulder in a half shrug, and allowing it to fall again, Greg said softly, "Just worried about you."

Moving until he was standing in front of Greg, Nick took Greg's hands and pulled the younger man to his feet, into his embrace, keeping just enough space between them to maintain eye contact. "I don't want you to have to worry about me."

As Greg gazed into Nick's eyes, Nick seemed to come to a decision. An edge of nervousness to his voice, he said, "Do you still want to watch?" Greg didn't have to ask what he meant, because as the words left Nick's mouth, Nick pulled Greg forward until their groins met.

He could feel Nick's cock hardening, felt his own begin to swell in response. It didn't stop him from asking, "With what you remembered today, are you sure?"

A jerky nod, and softly voiced, "I have to, Greg. I have to prove to myself he doesn't hold any power over me. Before I see him again." His voice dropped, so low, Greg had to strain to hear him, "Plus, I want you to be able to make love to me, someday, too."

The sincerity in Nick's eyes and the suddenly husky tone of Nick's voice, caused Greg's cock to swell further.

"Watch me, please!"

Now it was Greg's turn to nod jerkily. Capturing one of Nick's hands in his own, Greg turned towards the bedroom, pulling Nick after him.

Once in the bedroom, Greg rooted around in his toy drawer, pulling out a dildo that was much smaller than the one he'd used the day before. He set it on the night stand, beside the bottle of lube, then turned back towards Nick.

"I thought..." Nick began, but Greg cut him off.

"It's your first time, Nicky. You'd hurt yourself with the other one. I won't let you hurt yourself. It's supposed to feel good, not hurt. Never hurt." Greg seemed to be about to start rambling, but Nick's mouth suddenly covering his own made him stop. Feeling Nick's tongue brush across his bottom lip in entreaty, Greg opened his mouth to the older man.

Their arousals met through two layers of denim again, as Nick pulled Greg against him. Pulling back with a moan a moment later, Greg huskily murmured, "If all you expect me to do is watch, we'd better stop this right here, or I may not be able to control myself."

Pulling the younger man back against him, Nick quietly said, "I've changed my mind. Touch me, please. Teach me what to do."

Meeting Nick's eyes, Greg searched them for confirmation of the words the older man had spoken. There was a trace of nervousness, but no fear, at this point.

Leaning into Nick, Greg placed a kiss to the corner of the other man's mouth, kissing down his jaw to his neck. As he kissed his way down Nick's neck, his hands worked at the buttons of Nick's shirt, and pulled it free of Nick's jeans. When he had released the last button, Greg pushed the shirt from Nick's shoulders, allowing it to pool at their feet.

Continuing to blaze a fiery trail of kisses, Greg moved down Nick's chest, his hands going to the fly of Nick's jeans. He pulled Nick's belt open, then unbuttoned his jeans, pushing them down around muscular thighs. Gently pushing Nick backwards, until the older man had no choice but to sit down on the bed, Greg ceased his kissing long enough to kneel down and remove Nick's shoes, socks, and finally completely remove Nick's jeans and boxer briefs.

Looking up at Nick, Greg noted the absence of fear in the older man's deep brown eyes. Instead, there was desire mixed with curiosity. Starting at Nick's ankles, and stopping at his knees, Greg ran his hands up and down the older man's legs. Then he leaned in and kissed the inside of Nick's right knee.

Finally standing back up, Greg spoke for the first time in several minutes, "What position do you want to try?" As he spoke, he pulled off his shirt, discarding it on the floor with Nick's clothing, and began to work on removing his jeans and briefs.

Showing the first trace of unease, Nick scooted up on the bed, drawing his knees up nearly to his chest. "What position do you think would be the best?" he asked, his voice containing the slightest tremble.

Ridding himself of the last of his clothing, Greg sat down on the edge of the bed. His eyes met Nick's, but he didn't move to touch the other man. "There's the position I started out in yesterday. That one can get a bit hard on your thighs, though. On your stomach, with a pillow under you to prop your hips up. Or on all fours." Allowing a lust filled smile to cross his face, Greg added, "That one would be nice because it would give me easy access to your cock, otherwise, it's pretty much the same as being on your stomach."

Greg's teasing manner seemed to help Nick relax, because he allowed his legs to straighten in front of him. Slowly, he shifted his position further, moving to his hands and knees in the center of the bed.

Grabbing the lube and the dildo, and adjusting his own position on the bed, Greg moved so he was kneeling beside Nick. The older man turned to watch him over his shoulder. There was the slightest hint of fear in Nick's gaze, but as Greg watched, the older man seemed to bring it under control.

"If I do anything that makes you uncomfortable, just tell me to stop, Nicky," was Greg's quietly voiced reassurance, as he gently rested a hand on one of Nick's hips. He could feel Nick trembling slightly under the touch. Moving his hand up Nick's side, Greg reached under Nick and trailed his fingertips down the older man's chest, over one nipple.

Nick's sharply indrawn breath and suddenly arched back caused Greg to pause, only to resume his stroking of Nick's nipple as he realized the gasp was one of pleasure.

Trailing his fingers down Nick's chest and stomach, he brushed his fingers across the head of Nick's cock, causing it to twitch away from the older man's stomach. This time, a strangled, "Greg," escaped the Texan's mouth.

Fisting Nick's cock, Greg placed his other hand on Nick's hip. He marveled at how Nick's hip seemed to be perfectly sized to fit his hand. Moving his hand slowly, Greg began to stroke Nick's hip, as his other hand slowly stroked Nick's cock. Broadening his strokes, Greg moved his hand farther from Nick's hip, over the curve of one ass cheek, just getting Nick accustomed to his touch.

Small sighs and moans escaped the older man's lips, as Greg continued his ministrations.

Greg allowed his hand to wander over Nick's crack, dipping his fingers in to touch the puckered flesh there.

Nick turned to look at Greg again, their eyes locking as Greg continued to run his fingertip over Nick's opening.

As Nick watched, Greg removed his hand from the older man's cock to retrieve the bottle of lube. Without removing his hand from Nick's entrance, Greg dribbled lube over his finger and Nick's crack.

"Ready?" Greg murmured, still circling his fingertip around the puckered flesh.

Chewing nervously on his lower lip, Nick nodded.

"I won't lie to you, Nicky. It might be a little uncomfortable at first. It might even burn a little. But I promise, I won't hurt you!"

Fisting Nick's cock again, giving the older man something of a distraction from what his other hand was doing, Greg finally breached the outer ring of muscle. He felt Nick's muscles tighten around him, and stopped. Leaning lightly against Nick's hip, Greg kissed the soft skin there, as his left hand began to move slowly on Nick's cock. "Relax, Nicky. That's it, just relax," Greg said, as he felt Nick's muscles loosen around his finger again.

Pushing his finger further in, Greg wiggled it a little, gently stroking inside of Nick, searching for the one particular spot that would bring Nick the most pleasure out of this experience.

He knew he found it, when Nick's back arched, and he let out a guttural, "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

Pulling his finger back a bit, Greg gave Nick a chance to settle again.

Nick once more swung his head around to meet Greg's gaze. His eyes glittering with love and desire, he said, "God, Greg! Do that again! Please!"

Placing a kiss on Nick's hip, Greg replied, "Not yet. Soon. We haven't gotten to the best part, yet. Let me get you stretched, then I'll use the dildo to hit that spot." Humming low in his throat, Greg said, "You're going to love it, Nicky!"

Leaning forward, Greg captured Nick's lips in an awkward, sloppy kiss, as he added a second finger to Nick's now willing hole. He took his time, scissoring his fingers in and out of the older man's body. Not wanting Nick to cum too soon, he released his leaking cock and began to tease the older man's nipples again.

When he released Nick's mouth, he began to trail kiss over Nick's broad shoulders and muscled back.

Once he had Nick loose enough that the dildo wouldn't hurt him, Greg removed his fingers.

Nick let out a sigh of loss, as Greg removed both hands from his body, to lube up the dildo.

When the dildo was well lubed, Greg placed it against Nick's opening. As before, Nick was looking back at him again, and again, Greg asked, "Ready?"

Nick nodded more confidently this time, having been given a hint of the pleasure to come, and wanting to feel that pleasure again. "Do it."

Applying gentle pressure, Greg began to push the dildo in. He paused often, allowing Nick to adjust, waiting for a nod from the other man before pushing it farther in.

"You okay?" Greg asked, when he finally had the dildo pushed all the way in.

"Burns a little, but it's okay," Nick responded between gasping breaths. Greg's other hand was working over his shaft again.

Slowly beginning to thrust the dildo in and out of Nick's body, Greg angled it so it hit Nick's sweet spot every single time.

Nick's gasping breaths, and moaned, "Faster, please!" were all the encouragement Greg needed. He sped up the movements of both his hands. He hadn't even touched himself, but having his hands on Nick like this, Greg was pretty sure he was going to cum without any stimulation at all.

A guttural, "Scoot closer," met Greg's ears, and he obeyed instantly. His whole body jerked, when Nick's hand wrapped tightly around his cock and stroked just as hard and fast as Greg was doing for him. This seemed to set Nick off, for now they both shouted, and creamy white semen shot onto the comforter from them both.

Before he collapsed onto the bed, Greg had the presence of mind to remove the dildo from Nick's ass.

Nick seemed to be less boneless than Greg, for he was able to get up and take the dildo into the bathroom to clean up, and even brought back a cloth to wipe first Greg, then the spots on the comforter up.

Several minutes later, they had both recovered, but seemed loath to leave the bed. They weren't tired, but seemed content to just lay together. Greg was laying with his head on Nick's chest, listening to the older man's steady heartbeat. He was tracing random patterns over Nick's bare skin with one hand.

Turning his head enough to place a kiss on Nick's chest, Greg said, "You give good hand jobs." A languid smile spread across his face at the memory of it.

Capturing Greg's hand with his own, twining their fingers together and holding their hands at an angle that he could study them without having to hold his head or their hands up, Nick said, "You're not so bad, yourself."

Turning so his chin was now resting on Nick's chest, and he could look up at the older man, Greg said, "How long's it been since you've gone to the beach, Nicky?"

"Where did that come from?" Nick asked, confused at the sudden change of subject. Rolling with it, as he'd learned to do with Greg's quirky personality over the years they'd known each other, Nick brought his free hand to Greg's back, lightly tracing over the scars there.

"I was just thinking," he paused for a moment, trying to think of how best to word what had to be said. "You know, Ecklie's going to make Griss hire another CSI or two."

"Yeah, I know." A sad sigh escaped Nick's lips. "It's not going to be the same without him, Greg."

Squeezing Nick's hand reassuringly, Greg said, "I know." Coming to a decision, he said, "Sara's going to leave again, you know."

Another simple, "Yeah, I know."

"I'm pretty sure Grissom's going to be following her, this time."

An even simpler, "Yup," was Nick's response this time. It seemed that the older man had come to all of the same conclusions as Greg.

"Anyway. I was thinking, maybe a few weeks after Grissom hires the new CSIs – give them a chance to settle in and all that – we could go to California, to the beach. Spend a week there, just basking in the sun and sand. Get away from everything we see everyday." They both seemed to know he didn't just mean Las Vegas, itself. He also meant all of the horrors they saw on the job.

"I'd like that, G," Nick replied, pulling Greg's hand up to brush his lips across the younger man's knuckles.

They both lay tangled in each other, talking, gradually growing drowsy, until they fell into a light slumber.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

It was nearly a week before Todd Daniels was apprehended by PD. Nick and Greg were both out at a crime scene when it happened, so they didn't hear about it until they'd returned to the lab.

Greg convinced Nick that they had to process the evidence from their scene, before they went over to PD so Nick could see Todd. Brass was currently interrogating him, anyway.

Arms loaded down with bags of evidence, they were on their way to a layout room, when they passed Layout One, where Catherine and Grissom were busily processing evidence found in Todd's car. Catherine was holding up two Polaroid photographs, studying them closely.

Before Greg could stop him, Nick was pushing into Layout One, striding up behind Catherine. Peering over her shoulder, he took an involuntary step back again, after getting a good look at one of the pictures Catherine was holding.

Grissom was already rounding the table, trying to chase the two men back out of the room, a stern, "Nick, you know you can't be in here," falling from his lips.

Greg had been prepared for a reaction from Nick, at seeing the photos Todd had taken of him all those years ago. He hadn't thought to prepare himself for his own reaction. As his legs gave way, Nick – dropping the evidence bags he'd been holding – and Grissom both just managed to grab hold of his elbows, easing him the rest of the way to the floor.

Grissom pulled the evidence bags from Greg's suddenly senseless fingers, and gently pushed his head down between his knees. Nick was urging him to take long, deep breaths.

For the first time since the case had begun, Greg found himself bawling like a child. When Nick wrapped his arms around Greg's waist, Greg buried his face in the older man's neck and wept as he hadn't in years. Between sobs, he managed to choke out, "They all looked like you did as a boy, Nicky!"

Throughout the whole case, it had been Greg holding it together for Nick, now it was Nick's turn to hold it together for Greg.

"Take him to the break room until he calms down. I'll run your evidence over to the evidence locker until you can deal with it," Grissom said, starting to pick evidence bags up from where Nick had dropped them, and Grissom had set them after pulling them from Greg's grip.

Greg felt himself pulled to his feet, felt Nick's arms warp around his waist, felt Nick propelling him from the layout room. At the moment, he couldn't see anything, his eyes were just too tear blurred.

The way he was blubbering, he rather felt like a girl, but dammit, every once in a while, it just felt good to break down and have a good cry. It was something he hadn't allowed himself to do since Warrick's death, so he figured it was probably high time it happened. At least he no longer felt like he was going to pass out. Now _that_ was embarrassing!

In the break room, Nick pushed Greg down onto one of the couches, then went to get him a cup of coffee. Greg's sobs had finally subsided, and he was wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands.

When Nick handed him his coffee a moment later, he gave the older man a sheepish look, but didn't say anything.

"You okay?" Nick asked, reaching over to brush away a tear Greg had missed. The concerned look in his eyes told Greg the older man wasn't sure if he could take it if his rock suddenly crumbled. And this made Greg realize that that's exactly what he'd been for Nick since the onset of this case. A rock, unwavering in his steadfastness.

Giving Nick a reassuring and confident smile, Greg said, "I'm fine. I guess you could say a lot of that was for Warrick. I hadn't really let myself cry for him."

To prove his point that he was back to being Nick's rock, Greg deliberately took a swig of the break room coffee Nick had given him. He allowed a grimace to cross his face, as he said, "I'm going to have to clue you in to my hiding place for my stash of Blue Hawaiian, Nicky. This stuff tastes like motor oil!" Standing, he threw the cup of swill away. Turning back towards Nick, before moving towards the door, he said, "Let's go get that evidence processed, so we can get our meeting with Todd over with."

~~~CSI~~~

Several hours later, Nick and Greg stood in the observation room attached to the interrogation room where Todd Daniels was sitting with his lawyer. Brass had finished the interrogation just minutes before their arrival. He had informed them that Daniels wasn't talking, but the fingerprints and DNA they'd pulled would be speaking loud and clear very soon.

Greg hadn't looked at the monster on the other side of the one-way mirror for very long. Instead, he stood watching Nick. Lines that had eased over the past few days in Greg's presence were now standing out in stark relief around Nick's eyes and on his forehead again. He held his hands in fists at his sides.

Turning on his heel, Nick left the observation room to enter the interrogation room. Greg nearly had to run to keep up with him. Unsure of what the older man might do, he wasn't about to let Nick see Todd on his own.

When the interrogation room door opened, Todd Daniels looked up from his cuffed hands. He knew he was screwed. His lawyer shifted in her seat to regard the two new arrivals.

Nick glanced at the lawyer, quickly averting his eyes back to Todd. For once, having to fake his swagger, as he was scared out of his mind right now, Nick took a chair across the table. He turned it, so he could straddle it, and stared across the table at Todd, watching as recognition flashed in the older man's eyes.

Todd wasn't a tall man, topping out at five foot eight, and Nick could see that he now out massed his molester by a good fifty pounds. Todd's black hair was shaggy and greasy looking, making Nick wonder at the last time the man had bathed. Gray eyes regarded Nick curiously.

"Nicky?" Todd's voice was low and gravely, a smoker's voice. "Look at you, all grown up!"

Todd's attorney sat forward on her chair interest plain on her face, she took in Nick and Greg's I.D. badges hanging around their necks on chains. "You two know each other?" All three men ignored her.

Crossing his arms on the back of the chair he was straddling, with a nonchalance he didn't feel, Nick said, "I just want to know why you let me live, when you killed the others."

The attorney turned towards Todd sharply, "Do not answer that!"

Todd looked over at her and said, "We both know I'm screwed already, so just shut the hell up!" Then he turned back towards Nick. His eyes traveled fleetingly to where Greg stood just behind Nick. "You were supposed to be the first. In every other way, you were. I'd had it all planned out, where I was going to take your body, everything. I had convinced myself I was ready to do it. But in the end, I chickened out. Didn't gain enough confidence to actually do it for another two years." Todd's eyes strayed to Greg again, as Greg took an involuntary step closer to Nick, who leaned back a bit, towards the younger man. A look of surprise settled in Todd's eyes.

"Why boys that looked like me?"

"The perfect little Stokes boy! Could never do anything wrong. My dad compared me to you, nonstop! Looks like you aren't so perfect, after all! God, I wish I'd had the nerve to kill you!" There was a nearly lunatic rage on Todd's face now.

Greg watched the color drain from Nick's face. Taking another step forward, he touched Nick's shoulder, said, "Come on, Nick. We're leaving." He didn't really think Nick would leave so easily, but he stood and followed Greg out.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

They made it to the end of the hallway before Nick had to stop. He leaned his back against the wall, and slid down it to the floor.

Kneeling beside the older man, Greg leaned his head against Nick's, a reassuring hand going to the back of Nick's neck. He really didn't care who saw them like this. The only people who really mattered already knew, and approved, of the two men being together.

"It's finally over, isn't it?" Nick asked softly, twisting his head so he could meet Greg's eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, it is!" Greg replied softly. "Even if he miraculously doesn't get the death penalty, he'll never get out." Greg thought this reassurance was for himself, as much as for Nick.

After a couple of minutes of silence, Nick spoke, "Let's go home." To Greg, the words seemed to almost be a plea. Nick's next words made Greg's heart skip a couple of beats, before speeding up. "I want to make love to you, G. Bury myself inside you so deeply we don't know where one of us begins and the other ends."

Greg nodded, pulling the older man to his feet and moving towards the front of the building. The trip home was a bit hazy to Greg, but everything after it was crystal clear.

His fingers had fumbled with the key, trying to get it into the lock, but he'd managed to still the shaking long enough to get the door open. Finally getting the door open, Greg pushed through, Nick right behind him. Spinning Greg to face him, Nick pressed the younger man against the entry way wall, as the door fell closed behind them. Their lips met, and Greg's tongue teased over Nick's lower lip.

As their tongues met, Nick stroked his hands up and down Greg's sides, finally bringing them to rest on Greg's hips.

Already half hard throughout the ride home, Greg felt his cock fully engorge, until it was painfully constricted in his jeans.

Continuing to kiss, they both quickly shed their clothing.

Greg felt himself being guided down the hallway to the bedroom, didn't resist when Nick pushed him gently down onto the bed and blanketed him with his own body. Arching gently up against Nick's body, Greg sighed out, "Nicky!"

Trailing kisses down Greg's neck, Nick reached to the bedside table, where the bottle of lube sat beside their two dildos.

When Nick's lubed fingers brushed across his opening, Greg arched his back again, head pushing back into the pillows. He felt Nick latch onto a spot on his neck, first nipping at it, then laving over it with his tongue, sucking gently.

There was no hesitancy on either man's part. Having finally received closure, Nick's last inhibitions seemed to fall away.

Two fingers breached Greg's tight opening, causing only slight discomfort as the older man began to scissor his fingers in and out of Greg. Nick brushed his fingers gently across Greg's prostate once, twice.

Greg's hands flew up to Nick's upper arms. Gripping them tightly enough that there would probably be finger shaped bruises there later, Greg gasped out, "Oh, fuck! Nicky! I'm already so close! Just the thought of having your cock buried in my ass..." he couldn't finish the sentence, because now Nick was removing his fingers, pouring lube over his own leaking cock and positioning it at Greg's entrance.

As Nick began to slowly push inside, the two men locked gazes. Greg saw tears shimmering in Nick's eyes. He moved one hand from Nick's upper arm to his cheek, brushing a tear away with his thumb. "You okay?" he managed to choke out through his own suddenly tight throat. Seeing Nick in tears had him fighting back tears of his own.

Biting his lower lip, Nick managed a small nod. Then finally, "I just... You're so amazing, G! You've stuck by me, not knowing if I could ever be with you this way..." as he said this, he sank the rest of the way into Greg. "I feel like I'm in heaven, G. Feels so good! I love you!"

Smiling up at Nick, smoothing his hands down the older man's back to his ass, Greg said, "I love you, too!" as he pulled Nick closer to him.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, not moving, just reveling in their feelings. Both fighting hard not to cum on the spot.

Finally, Greg began to encourage Nick to move. "I'm going to give you the best orgasm of your life, baby!"

When Greg tightened his muscles around Nick's cock, the older man let out a gasp of surprise and pleasure. He began to rock into the younger man's body.

Wrapping his legs around Nick's waist, he pulled Nick impossibly deeper into his body. The friction of their bodies rubbing together, and Nick's cock hitting his sweet spot with every thrust, made Greg fall over the edge with a shouted, "Nicky!"

Greg's tight channel convulsing – as he orgasmed – around Nick's cock brought Nick to his own. Burying his face in the crook of Greg's neck, Nick's whole body stiffened. Nick's softly sighed, "Greg!" told Greg all he needed to know about how the older man was feeling.

~~~CSI~~~

Three months later.

Greg was propped up on his elbows, laying on his back on a beach towel. He squinted into the setting sun, watching Nick standing in the gently rolling surf. Nick was staring out to sea. He was standing so still, he almost could have been a statue.

The early evening air was already turning chilly, and Greg knew the California surf would be numbingly cold. The Cliffs Resort, where they were staying, had access to a public beach with stunning tide pools, but they had yet to see those. They'd arrived the evening before, having chosen to make the long drive from Vegas, instead of flying.

Shivering in the chill wind, Greg stood and shook out the towel before wrapping it around his shoulders. Walking up behind Nick, he wrapped his arms and the towel around the older man's shoulders, resting his chin on Nick's right shoulder. Cold ocean water almost instantly made his feet numb.

Nick hummed at the sudden warmth of Greg's chest pressed against his back, and he twisted around in Greg's arms, so he was facing the younger man.

They had the beach mostly to themselves. There were a few other people out, but neither man cared if anyone stopped to stare at them.

Chest to chest, now, Nick reached up and caressed Greg's jaw. Taking Greg's chin lightly between his index finger and thumb, Nick brought their lips together. What started out as a tender kiss quickly turned more passionate.

Pulling back a moment later, they were both panting for breath.

When he'd regained his breath, Nick leaned in and spoke softly into Greg's ear, "I want you to make love to me, Greg!" before taking the younger man's hand and pulling him towards the stairs leading to the resort hotel at the top of the cliff. Greg could hear the blood rushing in his ears, nearly couldn't believe what he'd just heard Nick say.

Reaching their room, Greg fumbled with the keycard in suddenly shaky hands. Nick had his body pressed flush against Greg's, as the younger man fought to get the door opened. He couldn't seem to get the card into the slot, though.

Nick's hand trailed down Greg's arm, gently grasping Greg's hand and guiding the keycard into the slot.

As soon as the door was opened, Nick guided Greg through, allowing the door to fall closed behind them. In recent weeks, Nick had become more dominant in bed, and Greg had reveled in this new side of his lover. No longer shy or scared, Nick had become ever bolder in voicing his desires to Greg, so Greg had known that once Nick had the confidence to bottom, he'd be a dominant bottom.

The distance from the entryway to the bed was made in a desperate re-exploration of known territory, sloppy kisses, and shedding of board shorts.

Nick pushed Greg down on the bed, and straddled his hips. Leaning down, he captured Greg's lips in another fiery kiss, then trailed kisses down Greg's jaw to his neck. As he teased Greg's nipples, he reached over to the bedside table for the bottle of lube.

Straightening up again, Nick lubed up his fingers, and reached around himself to his puckered entrance. He knew exactly what this did to Greg, as he'd grown bold enough to allow Greg to watch him play with himself several times.

"Fuck!" Greg exclaimed, his hips bucking involuntarily under Nick, as he watched the older man pushing his fingers inside of himself. Greg had to reach down and clamp his fingers around his cock, to keep from coming just from watching Nick's actions.

Nick took his time, first scissoring two fingers in and out of himself, stretching his opening as much as possible. When the mild discomfort of two fingers subsided to only a slight burn, he added another finger, again allowing his opening to adjust to the intrusion. With his free hand, he reached down and teased first one of Greg's nipples, then the other, delighting in the way the younger man had to improvise a cock ring to keep himself under control.

When he was satisfied that he was stretched as much as he was going to get, Nick picked up the lube again and dribbled some over the heated flesh of Greg's cock, drawing a gasp of shocked pleasure from the younger man. After smearing the lube all over Greg's hard length, Nick positioned himself above Greg and gently settled down onto the younger man's cock.

Greg transferred his hand from his own cock to Nick's, but didn't begin to stroke yet. He would wait for Nick to begin to move on his own cock. Reaching up with his free hand, he brushed his thumb over Nick's lower lip. Nick nibbled gently on the pad of Greg's thumb before drawing the digit into his mouth.

Nick traced the muscles of Greg's chest with his fingers, before putting his hands flat on the younger man's chest.

"It feels so good to be inside of you, Nicky!" Greg murmured with a sigh. He really wouldn't care if Nick chose not to move, and they just stayed like this for the rest of their lives. The pleasure was that intense. But then Nick started to move, and Nick let his head fall back with a moan as Greg's cock hit his prostate. And Greg was revising his pleasure meter to have this as the most intense pleasure he'd ever felt.

The way Nick's channel felt around him was like the softest silk wrapped tightly around his shaft.

And all too soon, the feeling of Nick's semen hitting Greg's chest caused the younger man to fall into the abyss, his semen shooting into the core of Nick's body.

When Nick collapsed on top of him, Greg wrapped his arms around the older man's shoulders, planting soft kisses to the older man's temple. He carefully rolled them to their sides, pulling gently out of Nick's body while murmuring, "You are so incredible, Nicky! I love you, so much!"

A drowsy, "You're more incredible than me, G. Love you, too!" was his reply.

As Greg cleaned them both up, a secretive smile stole over Greg's face.

"What?" Nick – apparently not as asleep as Greg had thought – asked, seeing the smile on Greg's face.

"Nothing. Just thinking about how much I love you." His smile widened further. "I've got us dinner reservations at eight. We've got enough time to shower and dress." Steeling a quick kiss, Greg strode to the bathroom.

~~~CSI~~~

The light level in the restaurant was low, lending a romantic aura to the place. The layout of the booths – high backs that allowed for privacy – added to that aura.

Nick and Greg had been seated almost as soon as they'd walked in, the waiter bringing by the wine list.

Greg had waved it away, instead whispering something in the man's ear. The waiter went away, and came back several minutes later with a bottle of champagne and two champagne glasses. Nick raised an eyebrow in curiosity, but he didn't say anything.

Once the champagne was poured, and the waiter had left, Greg pulled a small box from his pocket, and reached across the table to take Nick's hand.

Through a sudden shimmer of tears, Greg said, "I've never wanted anything as much as this, Nicky. Spend the rest of your life with me?" He opened the box to reveal matching platinum bands with the word "Future" engraved inside of them.

A wide smile stole across Nick's face, as he allowed Greg to slip one of the bands on his left ring finger. He seemed to understand the significance of the engraved word, because he said, "I don't think I'd have a future, without you, G. With you by my side, I can face whatever comes our way." Taking the other ring, Nick slipped it onto Greg's ring finger.

As they drank their champagne in celebration, they both looked forward to whatever the future might bring. They both prayed they were past all of the bad things, but knew that if they weren't, they would survive, as long as they had each other.

A/N: Well, this is it, the end of another story. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me to the end. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, or favorited, or alerted. :)

This may be the end of this story, but never fear, I've got another idea in mind. :)


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